KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The highest-profile detainee that the United States seeks to deport, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, appears to be headed to Uganda, where critics claim that a deal with the Trump administration eases political pressure on a president who's ruled for nearly four decades.
Ugandan officials have released few details about the agreement but have said they prefer to receive deportees of African origin — and don't want people with criminal records. Abrego Garcia is an El Salvador native who has been charged with human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty.
Abrego Garcia, the subject of a protracted immigration saga, was detained again Monday by immigration officials in the U.S., and the Department of Homeland Security said he “is being processed for removal to Uganda.”
Other African nations already have accepted deportees. In July, the U.S. deported five men with criminal backgrounds to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini and sent eight others to South Sudan, where civil war threatens to erupt again. Rwanda has said it will receive up to 250 migrants deported from the U.S.
Opposition figures and others in Uganda on Tuesday questioned the lack of parliamentary approval for the agreement.
Without such oversight, “the whole scheme stinks,” said Mathias Mpuuga, until recently the leader of the opposition in Uganda’s national assembly.
He said the agreement left him “a little perplexed” because Uganda already struggles to look after refugees fleeing violence in neighboring countries like Congo and South Sudan. He suggested the agreement makes sense only as a matter of “economic expediency” for Uganda's government.
It is unclear what Uganda's government is receiving for accepting deportees, how many it might take or what its plans for Abrego Garcia might be. The country's attorney-general, as well as government ministers in charge of refugees and internal affairs, were not immediately available for comment.
The day before Uganda confirmed the deal, the deputy minister in charge of international relations, Okello Oryem, asserted to The Associated Press that such an agreement was “complete rubbish.”
Some Ugandans on Tuesday were busy speculating what benefit longtime President Yoweri Museveni might receive. The authoritarian leader has been in power since 1986.
For Museveni, the deal is desirable “for political and perhaps economic reasons" and might come with trade opportunities, said Marlon Agaba, the head of a leading anti-corruption group in Uganda.
“The Trump administration is about deals, about deal-making, and any strongman would welcome that,” he said.
After U.S. sanctions targeted many government officials over human rights and other issues, “Museveni will be happy” to transact with Washington over deportees, said Ibrahim Ssemujju, a lawmaker and prominent opposition figure. “He will be asking, ‘When are you bringing them?’”
Ssemujju asserted that the agreement is flawed without parliamentary authorization.
Negotiators for the Ugandan side in the deal with the Trump administration are believed to have been reporting directly to Museveni.
For much of his time in power, Museveni was seen as a strong U.S. ally, especially for his support of counter-terrorism operations in Somalia, where he deployed troops to fight the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.
But his cachet in Washington has declined. The Biden administration piled pressure over corruption, LGBTQ+ rights concerns and alleged rights abuses.
Ugandan officials sanctioned by the U.S. include the parliament speaker, the prisons chief, a former police chief, a former deputy army commander and some former government ministers.
In 2023, reacting to U.S. sanctions imposed against Ugandan officials following the enactment of a law against homosexuality, Museveni told a gathering of government officials that he had no wish to visit the U.S.
