DOJ Asks Judge to Lift Injunction Blocking Re‑Detention and Third‑Country Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The Justice Department has filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to dissolve her injunction that currently prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement from re‑detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia so he can be deported, now to Liberia rather than El Salvador. DOJ argues the court’s own order is the only remaining obstacle to Abrego Garcia’s prompt removal and says any attempt to permanently bar the government from executing a removal order conflicts with established judicial norms, signaling a direct clash over the limits of federal court power in immigration cases. Abrego Garcia, whom the administration labels an MS‑13 member and whose lawyers deny that allegation, was deported to El Salvador in 2023 in violation of a 2019 order barring his return there, then brought back to face human‑smuggling charges in Tennessee; the Supreme Court later ordered the administration to work to return him to the United States. Judge Xinis had converted an emergency order into longer‑term injunctive relief after concluding the government had offered only “empty threats” of removal to various African countries with no realistic prospects and no “good reason to believe” it could remove him in the reasonably foreseeable future. The new filing comes as Abrego Garcia remains out of immigration detention, fights the smuggling charges as vindictive and selective prosecution, and offers to leave for Costa Rica, where his attorney says he already has asylum—an option the administration has so far rejected in favor of removal to Liberia.