A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to provide assurances that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant wrongfully deported earlier this year, will not be sent to Liberia while a court injunction barring his deportation remains in force.
District Judge Paula Xinis issued the demand on Monday after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) filed notice of plans to deport Abrego Garcia, 38, to the West African nation, despite his lack of any ties there.
“Any insight you can shed on why we’re continuing this hearing when you could deport him to a third country tomorrow?” Xinis asked government lawyers, referring to Costa Rica, which has said it would accept Abrego Garcia as a legal immigrant and not re-deport him to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March in violation of a 2019 court order protecting him from removal. He was returned to the US in June under judicial mandate, only to face new criminal charges for alleged human smuggling in Tennessee, a case he is now seeking to have dismissed.
The Trump administration has accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, though no evidence has ever been presented in court to substantiate the claim.
His lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, denounced the administration’s latest plan to deport his client to Liberia as “cruel and unconstitutional,” calling it a clear act of political retaliation. “Kilmar has no connection whatsoever to Liberia,” he said.
Immigration advocates have criticized the administration’s growing use of “third-country deportations,” in which migrants who cannot safely return to their homelands are instead sent to countries with which they have no links. Rights groups say the practice violates due process and risks sending vulnerable individuals into regions with poor human rights records.
Abrego Garcia, who has also filed a separate asylum claim in the US, remains in detention while his legal team fights to block his deportation.
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