America has always had a gift for rebranding cruelty as administrative efficiency. On August 23, 2025, CNN reported the latest episode in our long-running tragicomedy of immigration enforcement: Kilmar Ábrego García—a Salvadoran man who’s lived in Maryland since 2011, married an American citizen, raised children here, and already survived one wrongful deportation—may now be deported to… Uganda.
Yes. Uganda. A country he has never visited, has no ties to, and which has said quite clearly it does not want to take people with criminal records. But in the grand improvisational theater of U.S. immigration policy, the logistics of reality are treated as optional.
The Wheel of Misfortune
Ábrego’s saga reads like a Kafka novel rewritten by a federal contractor. He was wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year despite a judge’s finding that he faced credible danger there. A court later reversed the decision, hauling him back. Now, after refusing a plea deal in Tennessee that would have kept him jailed and sent to Costa Rica, the government wants to deport him to Uganda.
If you’re sensing a theme—it’s not “justice.” It’s “spin the globe and point.” Deportation roulette: the new American pastime. Who knew the Department of Homeland Security was running a geography game show?
Plea Deals as Deportation Coupons
The Tennessee prosecutors offered Ábrego a deal: plead guilty, stay in jail, accept deportation to Costa Rica. This was not presented as justice but as a Groupon code for exile. He refused.
This is the terrifying part: our justice system is no longer about proving guilt or innocence, but about curating destinations. Judges don’t decide the facts; they decide whether your deportation should come with palm trees or malaria risk.
Uganda by Sunrise
Uganda’s government, for its part, has been cautious. They’ve said they won’t accept criminal deportees and that their limited arrangement with the U.S. comes with conditions. But nuance rarely survives the Trump administration’s immigration machinery.
For DHS, the logic seems simple: El Salvador didn’t work. Costa Rica was refused. Uganda’s next on the list. It’s bureaucracy with the finesse of a drunk DJ at a wedding: skipping from track to track until someone dances, or at least leaves the floor.
The Family Left Behind
Ábrego has a wife. He has children. He has lived here for fourteen years. The U.S. has benefited from his labor, his taxes, his presence. But the administration’s calculus is clear: none of that matters. Families are props until they’re problems.
His lawyers point out the retaliatory nature of the Uganda move, framing it as punishment for refusing the plea deal. It’s not just deportation—it’s discipline. He dared to resist the script, and now he must be shipped to a country chosen out of spite.
Bureaucratic Logic
The defense lawyers call it “legally irregular.” That’s polite. It’s legally absurd. Judges have ordered 72-hour notice before any deportation attempt. Yet ICE has told him to report to Baltimore on Monday, where detention almost certainly awaits. His trial isn’t until January. But why wait for trials when you can fast-track exile?
The internal memo of immigration enforcement seems to read: Justice delayed is deportation denied.
The American Dream: An Obstacle Course
Ábrego’s story is not unique, only unusually visible. It exemplifies the new American dream: survive a wrongful deportation, navigate plea-bargain blackmail, dodge bureaucratic creativity, and pray the country they pick next doesn’t put you in further danger.
It’s not enough to live, work, and raise children here. You must also survive the government’s increasingly sadistic game of “let’s see how far we can bend the law before it snaps.”
Uganda as Symbol
Uganda is not the point; Uganda is the prop. It represents the administration’s willingness to use deportation not as law enforcement but as theater. Deporting a Salvadoran to Uganda isn’t about safety, justice, or due process. It’s about asserting power so arbitrary it feels biblical.
Like ancient kings banishing rivals to deserts, this administration banishes immigrants to random coordinates. The cruelty is the message.
The Broader Context
This fits the larger pattern. The Trump administration has already terminated Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands from Venezuela, Haiti, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Cameroon. The courts are clogged with challenges. The Supreme Court has greenlit Venezuelan removals. DHS calls TPS “de facto asylum.” Critics call its gutting racial animus disguised as reform.
Ábrego’s case is different only in its audacity: he is to be deported not to his homeland, not to a country he requested, but to a third nation he’s never touched. It’s deportation as fan fiction.
The Real Test Case
Lawyers call Ábrego’s saga a test case for the administration’s hard-edged tactics. If they succeed in deporting him to Uganda, they succeed in setting a precedent: citizenship, family ties, judicial orders—none of it shields you. The state can pluck you up and place you anywhere, like a chess piece tossed off the board.
The threat isn’t just to Ábrego. It’s to the rule of law itself. If geography is arbitrary, so is justice.
Our National Ritual
We call this immigration enforcement. But what it really is: ritual sacrifice. Each deportation is an offering to the base that thrills at cruelty disguised as order. Each headline about a family torn apart is a reaffirmation that the nation belongs only to some.
Ábrego’s Uganda order is not policy—it’s performance. It reassures the faithful that borders are being defended, not by reason, but by brute spectacle.
Closing Obituary
Obituary of Common Sense
1776 – August 23, 2025
Beloved but often neglected, Common Sense passed away quietly in a Baltimore ICE office, surrounded by confused lawyers and weeping children. The cause of death was listed as “Uganda.” It is survived by bureaucracy, political spite, and the erosion of due process. Services will not be held.