Kilmar Abrego Garcia has never been to Africa, but that’s exactly where the Trump administration wants to send him.

First the administration said it was going to send the detained father of three to Uganda, where his supporters said he feared persecution and torture. The administration switched gears Friday, sending an email to his attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, that said ICE intended to deport his client, whose case has drawn national attention, to the small Southern African country of Eswatini.

The Abrego Garcia case is the latest example of third-country deportation, which has increased under President Donald Trump. Critics say the practice is inhumane, retaliatory and a form of punishment.

Experts say the Biden administration infrequently, if ever, deported people to a country not of their origin.

But, after Trump returned to office Jan. 20 through the end of June, his immigration enforcement agency deported roughly 8,000 immigrants to countries where they had no ties, either by citizenship or birth, according to government data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Banner. Experts say the number is likely an undercount.

Roughly 65% of those deported to third countries were sent to Mexico, the data shows. Through June, there were no known cases of a third-country deportation to Uganda. Eswatini confirmed this summer that it had begun taking detainees, prompting some to say they didn’t want the country treated as a dumping ground, CNN reported. It has not confirmed if it will take Abrego Garcia.

In June, a divided Supreme Court voted without comment by the majority to approve the practice of sending immigrants to countries other than their homelands. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was joined by two liberal justices in dissent, wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”

Andrea Flores, a former Department of Homeland Security official in the Biden administration who now works for a nonprofit pushing for immigration reform, said Uganda has been clear it wants to accept only citizens of African countries.

“So the question to be answered by the administration is, what deal has been struck, what arrangements have been made?” Flores asked.

The Trump administration has said its strategy for third-country deportation is meant to be an inconvenience. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during an April Cabinet meeting that some detainees should be deported and “the further away the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”

As an alternative to a forced deportation, the Trump administration has offered incentives to migrants to leave the country voluntarily, including giving them $1,000 each through CBP Home App, an online portal once used by those seeking asylum. It has dangled other sweeteners, including cost-free travel to their country of origin and forgiveness of certain fines.

“The criminal illegal aliens being deported to third countries are convicted murderers, pedophiles, and worse. The only thing that’s ‘cruel’ are their actions against innocent American citizens and the Fake News that sides with criminal illegals over the innocent Americans they’ve harmed,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote in an email to the Banner.

Supporters of Abrego Garcia said the threatened move to Uganda would have been retaliatory and cruel. They point to the East African country’s history of political instability, violence and human rights violations. The U.S. warns against traveling there.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, who has been among the Maryland delegation leading the charge for Abrego Garcia’s freedom, recently described Uganda during an interview as having a “terrible reputation” with a “totalitarian regime.”

Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old who lived in Prince George’s County, was wrongfully deported in a case that reached the Supreme Court this year. After a national outcry, he was returned to the U.S. in early June, only to face criminal charges of transporting undocumented immigrants.

He was released from pretrial detention in Tennessee last month and allowed to return to his family in Maryland, only to be detained again as part of a renewed deportation effort. He is seeking asylum in the U.S.

The U.S. government initially offered Abrego Garcia assurance that it would deport him to Costa Rica if he agreed to delay his pretrial release, plead guilty to criminal smuggling charges and serve any sentence imposed by the court. He rejected that offer.

Then the government told him it intended to deport him to Uganda, and now Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. Eswatini is governed by a monarch who has absolute power, CNN reported. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are fighting the deportation.

“Any removal is blocked through October,” his attorney Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote Friday evening in an email to The Banner. Earlier that day, the Trump administration said it was fighting Abrego Garcia’s bid to apply for asylum in the United States, arguing he’s ineligible as a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has denied gang affiliations.

Law professor Maureen A. Sweeney, who serves as the faculty director of the Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, said the Trump administration is being “extremely smart” in its more aggressive strategy that threatens to deport people to faraway countries they have never seen before.

“There is nothing under the law that keeps them from doing this,” Sweeney said. “Earlier administrations had some misgiving to the appropriateness of doing this. But those informal guardrails are not restraining this administration.”

Sheri Hoidra, chair of the immigration committee of the Maryland State Bar Association, said she has never experienced prior administrations attempting to deport people to third countries.

“Although the immigration law permits removal of noncitizens to a third country in limited circumstances, the law prohibits transfer to any country where the individual would face a risk of persecution or torture,” the Pikesville-based attorney said. She added that the Trump administration is attempting to use the Alien Enemies Act to carry out the removals, a strategy that has been challenged in court.

Hoidra said she worries for individuals who may be subjected to these deportations.

“I can only imagine the psychological trauma that comes with getting deported to a completely foreign land where you have no ties or resources,” she said.

In July, the Trump administration defied a judge’s order and deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan man erroneously to El Salvador. The man, identified as Cristian in court documents filed in Maryland, was eventually returned only to be sent back to Venezuela, the country he escaped years ago because he feared persecution.

“They sent him back to the one country he’s actually seeking asylum from,” attorney Kevin DeJong told the court, according to the Associated Press.

As of Aug. 29, the man’s attorneys had not been able to contact him, according to court documents.

Sweeney said she feared, if Abrego Garcia was sent someplace like Uganda, he might have faced a similar outcome to Cristian.

“The real threat would be they could be detained and deported. This could be a way for the U.S. to offshore its obligation and let the other country do it,” she said. “It’s our obligation to make sure it doesn’t happen — even if indirectly.”

Banner reporter Sapna Bansil contributed to this report.