Footage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia being arrested by ICE has gone viral after the alleged MS-13 gangbanger slammed the “corrupt government” as he was being hauled away in cuffs.
The 30-year-old El Salvador native is facing the possibility of being deported to Uganda after he was detained by immigration officials in Baltimore on Monday.
The Department of Homeland Security shared a video of him shuffling through the ICE Field Office in the moments after he was detained.
“He doesn’t belong here. He won’t be staying here. America is a safer nation without this MS-13 Gangbanger in it. Good riddance,” DHS wrote alongside the footage.
The clip quickly exploded online after Abrego Garcia, who was released from a Tennessee jail last week as he awaits trial on human smuggling charges, uttered “it’s a corrupt government” as an ICE agent led him away.
“Kilmar is nothing but a petulant child,” one person reacted on X.
Others were quick to point out the “absolute irony” of him slamming the Trump administration.
“So corrupt he still wants to stay here,” one X user wrote.
“He has the gall to mutter ‘corrupt govt.’ Criminals don’t get to call anyone else corrupt,” another raged.
Abrego Garcia’s arrest comes after the Trump administration mistakenly shipped him off to his native El Salvador back in June.
He was subsequently brought back to face criminal charges of transporting migrants living in the US illegally, tied to a 2022 traffic stop during which the construction worker was pulled over on a Tennessee highway with eight passengers in the car, but no luggage.
Abrego Garcia, who has insisted he’s not a gangbanger, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on bond last Friday.
His lawyers have claimed US officials offered to send him to Costa Rica in exchange for a guilty plea – or risk being deported to Uganda.
“They’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick,” his lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “They’re weaponizing the immigration system in a way that’s completely unconstitutional.”
The feds detained him again at the ICE office in Baltimore after reporting for a scheduled interview on Monday.
He has since been sent to a detention facility in Virginia.
“Today, ICE law enforcement arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia and are processing him for deportation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
“President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer.”
His lawyers quickly filed a lawsuit seeking an order for him not to be deported anywhere unless he has had the chance to contest being sent there.
During a court hearing on Monday afternoon, US District Judge Paula Xinis said she planned to hold additional court proceedings on the administration’s plan to deport him to Uganda.
The judge barred the government from removing him until such a hearing could be held.
If deported, Sandoval-Moshenberg has argued they need assurances that Abrego Garcia won’t be sent back to El Salvador amid fears of persecution.
“We don’t know if Uganda will even let him walk around freely in Kampala or whether he’ll be inside of a Ugandan jail cell,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
The lawyer said Abrego Garcia had notified the US government he would be willing to accept deportation to Costa Rica since the country had said it would provide him with refugee status.
He didn’t say whether he’d agree to plead guilty to the criminal charges he’s facing.
With Post wires
