An American judge undertakes to rule “soon” on the fate of Abrego Garcia after a marathon hearing

GREENBELT, MD— A federal judge in Maryland vowed Friday to issue an order “as soon as possible” in a case involving the legal status of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the Trump administration’s plans to deport him from the United States to a third country within days – ending an extraordinary marathon hearing in his case that lasted nearly seven hours – and which dominated headlines and court records. federal courts for as many months.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis adjourned court Friday evening, promising to rule on the case as quickly as possible. Much of the hearing, however, was punctuated by incredulous objections from Xinis and frequent requests for “sidelining” from attorneys defending both sides of the case.

For Xinis, a judge who has presided over various iterations of Abrego’s civil trial 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.

Some parts of the day went much less smoothly. Xinis criticized the Trump administration for failing to produce a witness in court to testify about the steps it took to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s deportation to a third country, describing the official who took the stand as a witness “who knows less than nothing” about the case and the countries to which they plan to deport him.

“This appears to be in direct violation of the rules of the court,” she stressed, shortly before the day adjourned.

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia (right) and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura (left) attend a prayer vigil before entering a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Xinis had ordered the evidence hearing Monday, with the stated aim of evaluating a request by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers that he be released from immigration detention pending further action in his case, and of questioning a Trump administration official with “direct” knowledge of the government’s efforts to facilitate his deportation to the third country of Eswatini, where Trump officials have said they intend to send it.

Yet the audience was far more remarkable for what it failed to produce than for what it did produce. Judge Xinis struggled to clarify the seemingly contradictory statements and testimony from Trump officials, including which countries agreed or disagreed to accept Abrego Garcia, and when.

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

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

Xinis looked into this detail Friday evening.

“Now that we know Costa Rica is on the table, have there been any discussions about sending him back (there)?” she asked Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign, who said there had been none.

“Why not?” Xinis pressed. “You don’t want him in the country, you said that,” she said, referring more broadly to the Trump administration’s views. “You have a country that’s going to take it. You have a plaintiff who says, ‘I’m going to go.'”

The fact that the government continues to push for other nations to accept it, she said, is a notion that’s a bit “hard to swallow.”

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, stands with protesters rallying in support of Garcia outside the federal court during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty) (Getty Images)

Many of the crucial details were revealed after hours of grueling questioning with John Schultz, ICE’s deputy deputy director of enforcement and removal operations, whom the government called as a witness.

Despite his 20 years of experience at DHS, he seemed to know little about the case in question. He did not answer most of the questions posed by Xinis about the government’s plans to deport Abrego Garcia — including basic questions about who within the DHS ranks had been tasked with handling Abrego Garcia’s case, and the status of various deportation requests and communications with countries he had identified.

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

Trump officials also told Xinis in court Friday that the Eswatini government had initially refused to accept Abrego Garcia, but that they were currently having “additional discussions” on the issue and had not reached a consensus.

If the Eswatini government agreed to take Abrego Garcia, Trump officials said, they could facilitate sending a plane to transport him “within 72 hours,” pending Xinis’ dissolution of its court order requiring Abrego Garcia to be kept on the continental United States.

The other two countries, Uganda and Ghana, have been much clearer in their denials.

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Ghanaian Foreign Minister Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa said Friday morning on social media that his country had rejected the U.S. request to accept Abrego Garcia, which he said he had “conveyed directly and unambiguously to the U.S. authorities.”

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rossman, highlighted the lack of assurances from the three African countries, including the two that flatly rejected his request.

The government’s goal, Rossman explained, has been “to identify a series of countries that have no connection with Abrego Garcia and have shown no willingness to accept him.”

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys speak to reporters outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in July. (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital) (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital)

Instead, they argued, he should be sent to Costa Rica, the country DHS officials had initially proposed sending him to in coordination with a guilty plea in a separate criminal case in Nashville, where he was charged with two counts of smuggling.

Hours after he declined the plea offer, the government sent his lawyers a notice of removal to Uganda. Despite the wording of the notice, the Ugandan government has not yet been asked to take Abrego Garcia, let alone accept him. This detail was one of many discovered, painstakingly, over the course of several hours on Friday.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, meanwhile, told the court that he was “willing and able to board a plane immediately” to travel to Costa Rica, if ICE agreed to send him there.

His lawyer, Andrew Rossman, argued that the court should otherwise order his release, arguing that “the government has not and is not currently in custody of Mr. Abrego for the purpose of effecting his lawful removal” but rather as a means of punishment.

The Costa Rican government agreed to accept Abrego Garcia and outlined certain assurances he provided in writing to the United States, including granting him refugee status there, and committed not to “refoulement” or re-export him to his home country of El Salvador, per an immigration judge’s 2019 order.

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Xinis, for his part, seems to sympathize with this view.

She also expressed new frustration with Trump administration lawyers, who she said had failed to provide the court with a witness who could speak to Abrego Garcia’s case.

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

As they struggled to respond, she responded, “It bothers me a lot.”

Trump administration lawyers are free to appeal any order from Judge Xinis to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as DOJ Ensign indicated they might do shortly before the court adjourns.

Xinis later warned that the government, in his view, had little margin for error.

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“I’m really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she told Ensign. But at this point, it’s getting closer to “three strikes, you’re out.”