A federal judge on Friday said she would try to issue an order quickly in the deportation case of Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Accused of being an MS-13 gang member, Abrego Garcia was deported and sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a megaprison in El Salvador, last March. He gained national attention as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport suspected immigrant gang members living illegally in the U.S. He was seen as a hardened criminal by the administration and as a victim by Trump’s opponents.
After being deported to El Salvador, he was brought back to U.S. soil in June under a court order.
In Friday’s testimony hearing, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis appeared to grow impatient with the federal government’s legal team and its efforts to deport him to another country.
If a deportation location is not secured soon, Xinis could order that Abrego Garcia be released from immigration detention pending further action in his case, contradicting the words of Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin that the man would “never go free on American soil.”
The Trump administration has tried to deport Abrego Garcia to three African countries — Uganda, Ghana and Eswatini — but has been denied, according to Fox News.
Ghana’s foreign minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, posted on X last week that his country made clear it would not take in Abrego Garcia:
“Ghana is not accepting Abrego Garcia. He cannot be deported to Ghana. This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities. In my interactions with US officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles would not be expanded. Ghana strongly objects to these misleading media reports.”
However, John Schultz, a deputy assistant director overseeing deportation operations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, told Xinis that discussions between the U.S. and Eswatini are ongoing.
“I don’t know if there’s a rank structure on the next country if Eswatini doesn’t work,” Schultz said, according to Politico.
Costa Rica has agreed to take in Abrego Garcia, who has agreed to go there, but the federal government seems to be unsatisfied with that decision.
“We now know they are 0 for 3. Three strikes and you’re out. They have spun the globe and picked various places … to fail on purpose by selecting places that would be completely unpalatable for Mr. Abrego,” one of his attorneys, Andrew Rossman, told Xinis, per Politico. “What we’ve been getting in this courtroom is a lot of run-around.”
When told there had been no discussion on sending Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica within the Justice Department, she asked for an explanation.
“Why not?” Xinis said, according to Fox News.
“You don’t want him in the country — you’ve said that,” she said. “You have a country that will take him. You have a plaintiff who says ‘I’ll go there.’”
She mentioned that the idea of the government still urging other nations to accept him is a bit “hard to swallow.”