U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis will hear arguments on whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia — mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March and released from custody after a Dec. 11 order — should be returned to immigration detention. Judge Xinis found no formal removal order from a 2019 proceeding and criticized officials for failing to pursue Costa Rica, the only country Abrego Garcia agreed to accept. The government says detention is lawful while removal efforts continue; his attorneys say continued detention is punitive and unconstitutional without a realistic plan for removal.
Judge To Decide Whether Mistakenly Deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia Should Be Returned To Immigration Custody
Kilmar Abrego Garcia listens during a rally ahead of a mandatory check at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, after he was released from detention on Thursday under a judge's order. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, will hear arguments on Monday about whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be returned to immigration custody after being free for just over a week.
Abrego Garcia, whose erroneous deportation to El Salvador in March has become a flashpoint in the national immigration debate, had been held in immigration detention since August. During that period, federal officials said they planned to remove him to several countries — including Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia — even though Abrego Garcia has agreed to travel to Costa Rica. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has criticized the government for failing to pursue Costa Rica as an option and for giving the court inaccurate information about other countries' willingness to accept him.
Judge Xinis wrote: “The government’s persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal.”
Key Court Finding
In a Dec. 11 order, Judge Xinis directed that Abrego Garcia be released from immigration custody. She concluded that the immigration judge who considered his case in 2019 failed to issue a formal removal order, and without such an order he cannot be legally deported to another country.
Personal Background
Abrego Garcia has lived in Maryland for years and has an American wife and child. He entered the United States from El Salvador as a teenager and, in 2019, an immigration judge found he faced gang-related threats in El Salvador and granted him protection from return. Despite that ruling, U.S. officials mistakenly deported him to El Salvador this past March; authorities resisted calls to return him until the U.S. Supreme Court intervened.
Legal Arguments
In filings submitted last week, government lawyers argued that even without a final order of removal they are actively working to secure third-country removal and therefore may lawfully detain Abrego Garcia while those efforts continue.
Government filing: “If there is no final order of removal, immigration proceedings are ongoing, and Petitioner is subject to pre-final order detention.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys counter that Supreme Court precedent treats immigration detention as civil, not criminal, and therefore nonpunitive. They argue that detention in his case has become punitive because the government seeks approval to hold him indefinitely without a realistic or timely plan to remove him.
Defense filing: “If immigration detention does not serve the legitimate purpose of effectuating reasonably foreseeable removal, it is punitive, potentially indefinite, and unconstitutional.”
What Comes Next
The hearing will address whether the government can once again lawfully detain Abrego Garcia while it pursues third-country removal, or whether Judge Xinis’s finding that there is no valid removal order bars his re-detention. The decision will carry implications for how the government handles similar cases where destination countries are disputed or uncooperative.
