U.S. government attorneys on Tuesday told a federal judge the Department of Homeland Security still intends to deport to Liberia, despite a new to accept deportees who cannot legally be returned to their home countries.
The Salvadoran national鈥檚 case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was to El Salvador last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Homeland Security officials.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, of Maryland, previously barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting him or detaining him. She has written that the agency has to actually deport Abrego Garcia, referring in February to “one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.鈥�
Abrego Garcia has argued that if he is going to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which previously agreed to accept him. But Todd Lyons, the acting head of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, said in a March memo that deporting Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica would be 鈥減rejudicial to the United States.鈥� Abrego Garcia should be sent to Liberia because the U.S. has spent government resources and political capital negotiating with the West African nation to accept third-country nationals, Lyons wrote.
At a Tuesday hearing in Xinis’ court, Ernesto Molina, director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation, suggested that Abrego Garcia could 鈥渞emove himself鈥� to Costa Rica.
Xinis pointed out that the DOJ is prosecuting him in Tennessee on human smuggling charges. She called it a 鈥渇antasy鈥� to say that he can remove himself anywhere while the criminal case is pending. Xinis set a schedule for a briefing on the matter and scheduled a new hearing for April 28.
Abrego Garcia, 30, has an American wife and child and has for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family. By mistake, he was there anyway in last year.
Facing public pressure and a , President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration brought him back in June, but only after securing an indictment charging him with in Tennessee. He has and asked the judge to that case.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
