The Trump administration may have found a path forward in one of its most high-profile removal fights. According to an email shared by Fox News’ Bill Melugin, Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Friday that the government will no longer attempt to deport him to Uganda—at least for now. Instead, the agency designated Eswatini, a small southern African nation between South Africa and Mozambique, as his next destination.

The move follows weeks of legal whiplash. Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 member and human trafficker from El Salvador, was released by a Tennessee judge on August 22 and resurfaced in Maryland. Six days later, ICE took him back into custody, with indications that Uganda would accept him for removal. But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked that plan, ordering Abrego to remain detained in the U.S. while she holds an evidentiary hearing.

From the bench, Judge Xinis signaled there were “several grounds” for possible relief, pointing in part to questions about what status and protections Uganda would provide if it accepted him—whether he could move freely, receive refugee-like safeguards, and avoid transfer to El Salvador. Abrego’s attorneys, deploying a familiar playbook, argued he faced a “fear of persecution and torture” if sent either to his home country or to Uganda.

ICE’s Friday notice suggests the agency is done playing ping-pong with that argument. “The claim of fear is hard to take seriously,” the email states, “especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 countries.” The list is sprawling: El Salvador, Uganda, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

“Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa,” the message concludes.

The strategic switch underscores the administration’s determination to carry out removals despite courtroom speed bumps. U.S. immigration law allows DHS to remove an alien to a sequence of countries beyond the individual’s nation of citizenship in certain circumstances, creating options when the primary destination resists—or when a judge questions the arrangement. By identifying Eswatini, ICE is signaling it will continue using that statutory latitude until a transfer sticks.

Why Eswatini? Beyond the obvious—finding a government willing to receive him—the choice further undercuts Abrego’s sweeping fear claims. If counsel insists he faces harm in 22 nations across the Americas and Africa, the government can keep moving down the list of lawful destinations until a receiving country and a federal court both agree. In short: the broader the fear map becomes, the less credible it looks, and the more countries ICE can test.

Friday’s development also rebuts a growing narrative that the courts can indefinitely stall high-priority removals. Judge Xinis’ temporary order didn’t free Abrego; it kept him in detention while she gathers facts focused narrowly on the Uganda plan. ICE’s response was to change the plan. That preserves detention, advances the removal timeline, and places the onus back on Abrego’s team to mount yet another fear claim—this time tailored to Eswatini—or to argue that the court’s concerns about Uganda somehow apply to a different country altogether.

The broader backdrop matters. The administration has vowed to detain and deport “the worst of the worst”—violent offenders, gang members, traffickers—at scale. That push has already led to the rapid expansion of detention space and renewed pressure on third-country removals and transfers. In that environment, a case like Abrego’s is both a legal skirmish and a test of will: can successive claims and injunctions run out the clock, or will DHS keep pivoting until a judge’s temporary pause becomes irrelevant?

For now, the government has the initiative. Abrego remains in custody. Uganda is off the board. Eswatini is next up. And ICE has put in writing what many Americans suspect when they see an ever-lengthening list of places an accused MS-13 trafficker says he “fears”: the claims are starting to strain credulity.