WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is again trying to send the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the west African nation of Liberia and urging a federal judge to dismiss a bar on his removal, according to legal documents filed over the weekend. 

Abrego Garcia, of Maryland, has agreed to be deported to Costa Rica, which will accept him as a refugee, and is fighting his removal to another third country. The Trump administration cannot remove him to his home country of El Salvador, after he was mistakenly deported there in 2025 and kept in a brutal Salvadoran prison. 

His erroneous deportation cast a national spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

Acting U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, in a Friday court declaration, said he was disregarding Abrego Garcia’s proposal to accept removal to Costa Rica for two reasons. 

Lyons said Abrego Garcia did not designate Costa Rica as a third country of removal in 2019, when he was granted a withholding from removal to El Salvador. Lyons argues that Abrego Garcia therefore “forfeited his right to designate an additional country of removal when he failed to designate any other country prior to the completion of his removal proceedings.”

Lyons said the second reason is the Trump administration has already invested in “high-stakes political negotiations” with Liberia’s government to accept Abrego Garcia and if the administration were to abandon “agreements negotiated at the highest levels of government (it) could cast doubt on the diplomatic reliability of the United States in relation not only to the Republic of Liberia but also other nations with whom it negotiates on these and other matters.” 

Lyons said for those reasons, federal Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland should dissolve her injunction that prevents the Trump administration from removing Abrego Garcia. 

Third-country removals were somewhat rare until the second Trump administration, which is relying more on them as the president aims to carry out mass deportations. 

Abrego Garcia’s situation dates back years. In 2019, when Abrego Garcia was granted the withholding of removal because a judge found he would face violence from gangs if removed to El Salvador, he had an agreement with ICE to check in yearly. 

In 2025, ICE agents stopped Abrego Garcia while he was picking his son up from day care and he was informed there was a change in his immigration status. He was placed on a deportation flight with hundreds of other men to the brutal Salvadoran mega-prison known as CECOT. 

Later in 2025, the courts ordered Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.

The Trump administration is asking for Xinis to make her decision by April 17. Xinis was appointed by former President Barack Obama. 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland Tuesday barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the Trump administration lacks plans to remove him from the United States.

“Respondents have done nothing to show that Abrego Garcia’s continued detention in ICE custody is consistent with due process,” District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis wrote in her order. 

Tuesday’s order solidifies a temporary decision from Xinis last year that blocked immigration officials from re-detaining him. 

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran immigrant and longtime Maryland resident whose wrongful deportation to a brutal megaprison last year cast a national spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. 

His case has remained a focal point for the Trump administration, which brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. to face criminal charges lodged against him stemming from a traffic stop in Tennessee. 

Those charges were made while Abrego Garcia remained imprisoned in El Salvador, and after the Supreme Court found his deportation unlawful and said the Trump administration should facilitate his return. 

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to those charges of human smuggling and that case continues.

Since Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S., the Trump administration has tried to deport him to a third country, because he has deportation protections from his home country of El Salvador. An immigration judge in 2019 found he would likely face violence if returned there. 

Costa Rica has offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee and he has agreed to be removed there, but the Trump administration has tried to deport him to three African countries: Liberia, Eswatini and Uganda.

“Indeed, since Abrego Garcia secured his release from criminal custody in August 2025, Respondents have made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” Xinis wrote. 

Xinis added that because the Trump administration has not secured any travel documents for a third country of removal for Abrego Garcia, his detention would be unlawful. The Supreme Court deemed that immigrants cannot be held longer than six months in detention if the federal government is not actively making efforts to remove them. 

“From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” she wrote.

Abrego Garcia remains in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their three children.