A US judge vows to rule “soon” on Abrego Garcia’s fate after marathon hearing

Greenbelt, Maryland — A federal judge in Maryland vowed Friday to issue an order “as soon as possible” in a case involving the legal status of Salvadoran immigrant Kelmar Abrego Garcia and the Trump administration’s plans to deport him from the United States to a third country within days — capping an extraordinary marathon hearing in his case that lasted nearly seven hours — and has dominated news headlines and federal court filings for several days. months.

US District Judge Paula Shenis adjourned the hearing on Friday evening and promised to issue an order on the matter as soon as possible. However, much of the hearing was punctuated by questionable objections from Shenis and frequent requests for a “sidebar” with attorneys discussing both sides of the case.

For Shenis, the judge who has presided over several hearings in Abrego’s civil case since March, the frequent pauses were a bit of an aberration, which she acknowledged.

“I’ve always been a fan of smooth jazz,” she joked.

Certain parts of the day went much less smoothly. Shenis criticized the Trump administration for failing to present a witness to the court to testify about the steps it took to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s deportation to a third country, describing the official who appeared on the stand as a witness who “knows less than nothing” about the case, and the countries to which they are considering extraditing him.

“This appears to be in direct conflict with the court,” she pointed out shortly before adjourning the hearing.

ABREGO GARCIA remains in the United States for the time being as a judge takes the case under advisement

Shenis ordered an evidentiary hearing on Monday, with the stated goal of evaluating a request by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to release him from immigration detention pending further proceedings in his case, and to question a Trump administration official with “direct” knowledge of government efforts to facilitate his deportation to the third country of Eswatini, where Trump officials have said they intend to send him.

However, the hearing was more notable for what it failed to produce than for what it did. Judge Shenis struggled to clarify seemingly contradictory statements and testimony from Trump officials, including which states did or did not agree to admit Abrego Garcia, and when.

Trump administration lawyers acknowledged to Shenis that they had previously identified three African countries — Uganda, Ghana and Eswatini — as suitable third-country locations to deport Abrego Garcia, pending the rescission of its emergency order keeping him in the United States.

But they misrepresented the positions of Ghana and Eswatini. As of this writing, none of the three governments mentioned have agreed to accept Abrego Garcia.

Shenis honed in on those details Friday evening.

He asked, “Now that we know that Costa Rica is on the table, have there been any talks about dismissing him (there)?” I asked Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign, who said he wasn’t there.

“Why not?” Shenice pressed. “You don’t want him in the country, I said that,” she said, referring more broadly to the views of the Trump administration. “You have a country that will take him. You have a pretender who says I will go there.”

She said the government’s continued pressure on other countries to accept it was a somewhat “hard to swallow” idea.

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Many crucial details emerged after hours of strenuous questioning with John Schultz, ICE’s deputy assistant director for enforcement and removal operations, whom the government presented as its witness.

Despite his twenty years of experience at DHS, he seemed to know little about the case in question. He failed to answer most of the questions posed by Shenis about the government’s plans to deport Abrego Garcia — including basic questions about who among the ranks of the Department of Homeland Security has been appointed to handle the Abrego Garcia case, the status of various deportation requests and contacts with the countries she has identified.

Asked if he had been involved at all in the Abrego Garcia case before Tuesday, Schultz said he had “tried his case in March,” but could not remember “in what capacity.”

Trump officials also told Shenice during court on Friday that the Eswatini government initially refused to accept Abrego Garcia, but they are currently conducting “additional discussions” on the matter and have not reached a consensus.

Trump officials said that if the Eswatini government agreed to seize Abrego Garcia, they could facilitate a plane to transport him “within 72 hours,” pending Shenis’ resolution of the court order keeping Abrego Garcia in the continental United States.

The other two countries, Uganda and Ghana, were more clear in their denial.

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Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, said on social media on Friday morning that his country had rejected the US request to accept Abrego Garcia, something he said they had “conveyed directly and unequivocally to the US authorities”.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rossman, pointed out the lack of guarantees from the three African countries, including the two countries that flatly rejected his claim.

Rossmann said the government’s goal was “to identify a series of countries that have no relationship with Abrigo Garcia and that have not shown any willingness to receive him.”

Instead, they claimed, he should be sent to Costa Rica, a country to which DHS officials had offered to send him in coordination with a guilty plea in a separate criminal case in Nashville, where he was charged with two counts of smuggling.

Hours after the plea offer was rejected, the government sent his lawyer a deportation notice to Uganda. Despite the language of the notice, the Ugandan government has yet to ask for, let alone approve, the takeover of Abrego Garcia. This detail was one of many that were discovered, painstakingly, over many hours on Friday.

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers told the court that he is “willing and able to immediately board a plane” to go to Costa Rica, if ICE agrees to send him there.

His lawyer, Andrew Rossman, said the court should order his release from immigration detention, arguing that “the government has not and will not currently detain Mr. Abrego for the purposes of implementing his lawful deportation,” but rather as a means of punishment.

The Costa Rican government agreed to accept Abrego Garcia and provided some of its assurances to the United States in writing, including granting him refugee status there, and pledging not to “send him back” or deport him back to his native El Salvador, in keeping with a 2019 court order issued by an immigration judge.

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For her part, Shenis seemed sympathetic to this view.

She also expressed new frustration with Trump administration lawyers, who she noted twice failed to provide the court with a witness who could speak in the Abrego Garcia case.

“Before Monday, what efforts had the government made to find a third country that would accept Abrego?” Shenis asked Trump administration officials at one point during the hearing.

As they struggled to answer, she noted in response: “This is very disturbing to me.”

Trump administration lawyers are free to appeal any order by Judge Shinnis to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Justice Department’s Ensign has indicated they may do so shortly before the court adjourns.

Shenis later warned that the government, in her view, did not have much margin for error.

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“I try hard to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she told Ensign. But at this point, it’s “three strikes, you’re out.”