Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who reunited with his family last week after 160 days apart following his mistaken deportation to El Salvador, was taken into ICE custody on Monday after an immigration check-in, his attorney said.
The check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore was part of the conditions of his release from federal custody on parole on Friday.
While such meetings are usually routine and are meant for case updates, Abrego's attorneys said they expected he would be taken into ICE custody during the check-in after the Trump administration announced over the weekend its intention to deport him to Uganda…
The White House confirmed Monday's arrest and said ICE officials are "processing him for deportation." The White House X account did not offer more details about Abrego's future.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said Monday that Abgrego has filed a new lawsuit in federal district court for the district of Maryland "seeking to ensure that he is not removed from the United States pending his immigration proceedings."
The lawsuit asks for an order from a Maryland federal judge that Abrego not be allowed to be removed from the United States, unless he is given proper due process to fight his potential deportation.
The suit challenges Abrego's deportation to Uganda or any other country unless and until he's had a fair trial, Sandoval-Moshenberg said. He later argued that deporting his client to any country without any credible assurances that he can stay there would be "just a very inconvenient layover to El Salvador."
Net favorability of the four principal New York City mayoral candidates in general election polls conducted since mid-July
At worst, Mamdani’s net favorability has hovered around zero in three recent polls, but that unremarkable figure still rises well ahead of his opponents’ numbers. At best, Cuomo’s net favorability has fallen in the negative mid-teens, while Sliwa’s top showing was around -10. For his part, Adams is a remarkably unpopular incumbent mayor. A Siena Research Institute survey in early August gave Adams his strongest net favorability mark: -28.
Tied into their low favorability numbers, each alternative has clear shortcomings. Cuomo resigned from the governorship in 2021 in the face of multiple sexual harassment allegations. Furthermore, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as governor continues to affect views of Cuomo, particularly the deaths of many nursing home patients around the state.
Although Sliwa has the fewest scandal marks against him of Mamdani’s opponents, he suffers from another problem: He’s a Republican in dark-blue New York City. Sliwa won 28% as the Republican standard-bearer against Adams in 2021, so it’s difficult to see him building substantially on that showing. And for all the talk about the gains President Donald Trump made across his hometown in last year’s presidential election — absolutely a significant shift — Gotham remains a solidly Democratic locale.
NYC shifted right in 2024, but remains quite blue
Presidential vote share for the two major parties in New York City, 1988 to 2024
At the moment, only Cuomo seems to have a path to bringing enough of these voters together to give Mamdani a challenge. And even then, Cuomo is far from a sure thing. In surveys testing alternative matchups in the mayoral race, Cuomo and Mamdani ran about even in a late July poll from Wick, while the more recent Gotham Polling & Analytics/AARP poll gave Mamdani an 11-point edge over Cuomo. Meanwhile, the Gotham/AARP survey also gave Mamdani more than 20-point leads over Adams or Sliwa in head-to-head tests. Across most surveys, a Cuomo withdrawal tends to produce a less competitive race for Mamdani.
Cuomo is aware that he is likely the best vehicle to maximize support for an anti-Mamdani candidate. Politico reported last week that Cuomo told high-roller donors that he believes Trump will work on behalf of Cuomo’s bid behind closed doors. The commander-in-chief’s antipathy for Mamdani could prompt him to help coalesce the anti-Mamdani forces around one candidate. However, the choice to link success with Trump wouldn’t necessarily endear that candidate to New York City voters. In Siena’s recent poll, just 30% of registered voters in the city approved of Trump’s presidency, compared with 69% who disapproved. Mamdani’s campaign has already worked to connect Cuomo and Trump by portraying both as self-serving politicians who help their donors, not working people.
Let’s examine those two questions (abortion for any reason and a complete ban on abortion) and track how the parties feel about them over the last decade. I think this visualization is really helpful in understanding the contours of abortion opinion in the United States.
I think you can quickly ascertain that the Democratic party has ‘purified’ on the issue of abortion over the last ten years. In 2014, 76% of Democrats supported abortion on demand, while 13% said it should be completely illegal. In 2024, 89% of Democrats favor abortion for any reason and 6% think it should be illegal. In other words, it would be nearly impossible to win an elected office as a Democrat if your stated position was that abortion should be banned.
In contrast, the Republican party is often perceived as being the ‘pro-life’ alternative. That’s not at all supported by the data. In fact, it’s hard to really make a broad statement about how GOP voters think about abortion. In 2015, 32% of Republicans thought abortion should be allowed for any reason, while 25% supported a full ban. That illustrates how divided the GOP is when it comes to abortion. Over time, each number has gone up and down just a little bit but I think it’s fair to say that the party is probably more moderate today on abortion than it was ten years ago. About 29% support complete abortion access, while 19% support abolition. That means that half don’t fit clearly in the ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’ camp. This helps us to understand Trump’s tiptoeing around the issue.
“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
