Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Federal judge to decide whether he should return to immigration custody

GREENBELT, Md. - A federal judge on Monday will hear arguments over whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be returned to immigration custody after spending just over a week free.

What we know:

Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador has drawn national attention from both sides of the immigration debate, had been held since August. 

During that time, the government said it planned to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia. 

But officials have made no attempt to send him to the one country he agreed to go to - Costa Rica. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has even accused the government of misleading her by falsely claiming Costa Rica would not accept him.

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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," she wrote.

Xinis’ Dec. 11 ruling releasing Abrego Garcia from custody also found that the immigration judge who heard his case in 2019 never issued a removal order, meaning he cannot be deported anywhere until one exists.

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Images of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he reported to the ICE detention center in Baltimore on Monday, just days after his release from jail. ICE alerted his attorneys Friday that he could be deported to Uganda and was ordered to report to authorities.

The backstory:

Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years. He came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being returned there, finding he faced danger from a gang targeting his family. But in March, he was mistakenly deported anyway. U.S. officials resisted calls to bring him back until the Supreme Court intervened. They have since said he cannot remain in the U.S. and must be deported to a third country.

In recent filings, government attorneys argued that, with or without a final removal order, they are still working to deport him and can legally detain him while that process continues.

"If there is no final order of removal, immigration proceedings are ongoing, and Petitioner is subject to pre-final order detention," they wrote. 

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Abrego Garcia’s attorneys countered by citing a Supreme Court ruling that "because immigration proceedings ‘are civil, not criminal’ detention must be ‘nonpunitive.’" 

They argued his detention has become punitive because the government is seeking the authority to hold him indefinitely without a realistic plan to deport him.

"If immigration detention does not serve the legitimate purpose of effectuating reasonably foreseeable removal, it is punitive, potentially indefinite, and unconstitutional," they wrote.

READ MORE: Judge issues temporary order blocking ICE from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Images of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he reported to the ICE detention center in Baltimore on Monday, just days after his release from jail. ICE alerted his attorneys Friday that he could be deported to Uganda and was ordered to report to authorities.