Judge Signals She Is Likely to Order Abrego Garcia’s Release Soon

A federal judge on Friday expressed strong doubt that the Trump administration had legal authority to continue detaining Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man now in immigration custody after Trump officials wrongfully deported him and then brought him back.

Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court in Maryland had called the hearing to give the Trump administration a chance to demonstrate evidence of lawful plans to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia soon, without which she said she was inclined to release him. But instead, she said, the government seems to be switching arguments at will to try to lengthen his detainment, resulting in a “totally inconsistent” case.

“You’re not even close,” the judge told administration lawyers at one point during the six-hour session. “We’re getting to ‘three strikes and you’re out.’”

If Judge Xinis orders Mr. Abrego Garcia released, it would be his first time walking free since he was briefly released for three days in August, after two judges ruled against Mr. Abrego Garcia’s continued detention for criminal charges the administration is separately pursuing against him. The release would also amount to the latest judicial rebuke of the Trump administration in a long and twisting case that began with what officials admitted was an “administrative error” that led to Mr. Abrego Garcia’s detention in a Salvadoran prison.

The administration has vowed that Mr. Abrego Garcia would “never go free on American soil.”

Central to the argument on Friday was whether administration officials had found a country where to take Mr. Abrego Garcia, who has been barred from deportation to his native El Salvador because he fears his life would be in danger there.

The Trump administration had previously floated Uganda and Eswatini as the primary options. But the government’s key witness, John Schultz, a deputy assistant director overseeing deportation operations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said no African countries to which the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia had agreed to take him.

For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.

But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.

She did not get the clarity she was seeking. Mr. Schultz not only could not explain why the administration had refused to consider Costa Rica but also said he had been unaware that Costa Rica had provided such assurances to Mr. Abrego Garcia.

“You came here today with a witness who knows nothing about Costa Rica, I mean, less than nothing,” Judge Xinis told a government lawyer, referring to Mr. Schultz. “Help yourself dig out of this hole.”

“This is a joke for anyone who’s listening,” she added.

Mr. Schultz’s testimony often seemed to undermine the government’s contention that it had concrete plans to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia in the weeks to come.

Government officials had presented Eswatini, a tiny nation in southern Africa, as the leading option for Mr. Abrego Garcia at a hearing on Monday. But Mr. Schultz said the State Department requested that Eswatini take Mr. Abrego Garcia on Wednesday, two days later. Mr. Schultz learned a few hours before the hearing on Friday that Eswatini had refused, he said.

There was also discussion of Ghana at the hearing, but Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s foreign minister, said on social media on Friday that the country was “not accepting Abrego Garcia,” a position that he said the Ghanian government “directly and unambiguously conveyed to U.S. authorities.” Mr. Abrego Garcia objected to being deported to Uganda, expressing fear for his safety in the country, an argument that Trump officials have yet to challenge.

Mr. Abrego Garcia had been living illegally in the United States but was protected from deportation to El Salvador under a 2019 immigration court ruling. Then the Trump administration mistakenly deported him to the country anyway. He spent months in prisons there before returning to the United States in June, weeks after the Supreme Court ordered Trump officials to facilitate his return.

Soon after his return, the administration brought criminal charges against him, claiming that Mr. Abrego Garcia had smuggled undocumented immigrants across the United States, an accusation that a federal judge in Nashville found likely to have stemmed from a vindictive prosecution.

According to court filings, Mr. Abrego Garcia is currently a legal resident of the United States, as the Trump administration paroled him into the country until June 2026 to bring criminal charges against him.