A U.S. federal judge has delivered a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration’s secretive deportation pact with Ugandan government, ruling that Uganda is “an unworthy destination” for housing American deportee Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant facing serious charges in the United States.
The ruling, handed down late Monday evening, temporarily halted the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to remove Abrego to Kampala under a bilateral arrangement between Washington and Kampala.
According to sources familiar with the proceedings, Judge Eleanor Markham dismissed the government’s bid to relocate Abrego to Uganda as “legally dubious, diplomatically reckless, and incompatible with America’s constitutional guarantees of due process.”
“Uganda has neither the legal framework nor the institutional safeguards to accept or rehabilitate a deportee of this magnitude,” the ruling reads in part. “To consign Mr. Abrego there is to abdicate responsibility and deny him fundamental rights.”
Trump–Sevo Deal Exposed
Reports emerged earlier this month that the Trump White House had struck a deal with Museveni’s government to receive select foreign-born detainees whom the U.S. sought to expel but could not legally return to their countries of origin.
The arrangement was widely criticized as a “dumping scheme” that would turn Uganda into a holding ground for America’s unwanted.
Abrego, accused by DHS of gang ties, human trafficking and domestic abuse was set to become the first high-profile deportee under the plan.
But the court intervened, ruling that Uganda’s weak judicial system, poor human rights record, and lack of direct ties to Abrego made it an “inappropriate and unsafe repository for U.S. deportees.”
Embarrassment
The decision has sparked embarrassment in Kampala. A senior Ugandan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted that the government “had expected compensation packages” in exchange for cooperating with Washington.
Instead, the court’s intervention has left Kampala exposed, accused of bargaining away Uganda’s sovereignty for political favors from the Trump administration.
Opposition leaders in Uganda seized on the ruling, calling it proof that Museveni was “auctioning the country’s dignity on the international stage.”
For now, Abrego remains in U.S. custody under electronic monitoring while legal wrangling continues.
His lawyers welcomed the ruling, calling it “a landmark blow against the reckless outsourcing of human lives.”
The Biden campaign has already cited the case as evidence of Trump’s “lawless and dangerous” immigration agenda, while the White House insists it will appeal.
Whether Abrego faces trial in the U.S. or becomes the centerpiece of another deportation scheme remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that Uganda has been struck from the list of options at least for now.
