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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 immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration plans to deport from the United States to a third country within days — capping off a marathon special hearing in his case that lasted nearly seven hours — and dominated headlines and federal court dockets for months.
U.S. District Judge Paula Hines adjourned the case Friday night and promised to order an order on the matter as soon as possible. Much of the hearing, however, was punctuated by Sinise’s incredible objections and frequent requests from attorneys to make “sidenotes” on both sides of the case.
For Judge Sinise, who has heard Abrego’s civil case several times since March, the frequent pauses were a bit uncharacteristic, she acknowledged.
“I’ve always been a proponent of smooth jazz,” she quips.
Some parts of the day don’t go so well. Sinise condemned the Trump administration’s failure to provide witnesses to the court to testify about the steps it took to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, saying the officials who appeared as witnesses had “little to no knowledge” of the case and the country they were considering deporting him to.
“This appears to be in direct violation of the rules of the court,” she pointedly noted shortly before adjourning.
ABREGO GARCIA remains in the U.S. temporarily as a judge accepts recommendations to hear the case
Guilma Abrego Garcia (right) and his wife Jennifer Vazquez Sulla (left) attend a prayer vigil before entering the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 25, 2025. (Anna Money Tree/Getty Images)
Sinise 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 before further action in the case and to question a Trump administration official with “first-hand” knowledge of the administration’s efforts to facilitate his deportation to Swaziland, a third country where Trump officials said they intended to send him.
Still, the hearing was more remarkable for what it failed to produce than what it produced. Judge Sinise worked to clarify seemingly conflicting statements and testimony from Trump officials, including which countries agreed or did not agree to accept Abrego Garcia and when.
Trump administration lawyers acknowledged to Sinise that they had previously identified three African countries — Uganda, Ghana and Swaziland — as suitable third-country locations to deport Abrego Garcia pending the lifting of her emergency order keeping her in the United States.
But they wrongly represent the positions of both Ghana and Swaziland. As of this writing, none of the three governments have agreed to accept Abrego Garcia.
Sinise pored over the detail Friday night.
“Now that we know Costa Rica is on the table, are there any conversations about removing him?” she asked Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign, who said there were not.
“Why not?” Sinis was pressed. “You don’t want him to stay in this country — you’ve said that,” she said, referring more broadly to the Trump administration’s views. “You have a country that will accept him. You have an accuser who says ‘I’ll go there.'”
She said the government was still urging other countries to accept him, which was a somewhat “difficult” idea to accept.
During a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, Guilma Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vazquez Surla, stood with demonstrators rallying in support of Garcia outside the federal courthouse. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Many key details emerged after hours of painstaking questioning of John Schultz, ICE’s deputy assistant director for enforcement and deportation operations, who the government sent as a witness.
Although he has 20 years of experience working for the Department of Homeland Security, he appears to have little knowledge of the relevant cases. He failed to answer most of Sinise’s questions about the administration’s plans to deport Abrego Garcia, including basic questions about who within the Department of Homeland Security is assigned to handle Abrego Garcia’s case, as well as the status of various deportation requests and communications with the countries that have been identified.
Asked if he had been involved in Abrego Garcia’s case before Tuesday, Schultz said only that he “investigated his case in March” but could not remember “in what capacity.”
Trump officials told Sinise in court on Friday that the Swaziland government initially refused to accept Abrego Garcia, but that they are currently having “additional discussions” on the matter and have not yet reached a consensus.
Trump officials said if the Swaziland government agreed to take Abrego Garcia, they could send a plane to transport him “within 72 hours,” pending Sinis lifting a court order requiring Abrego Garcia to remain in the U.S. mainland
Two other countries – Uganda and Ghana – were much more explicit in their denials.
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to review El Salvador deportation flight case
Ghana’s Foreign Minister Sam Okudzeto Abraqua said on social media on Friday morning that Ghana had rejected the U.S. request to accept Abrego Garcia, saying they “communicated this directly and clearly to the U.S. authorities.”
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rothman, pointed to the lack of guarantees from the three African countries, with two of them rejecting his claims outright.
Rothman believes that the government’s goal is to “identify a series of countries that have no relationship with Abrego Garcia and have not expressed a willingness to accept him.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorney speaks to reporters outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in July. (Brené Depisch/Fox News Digital) (Brené Depisch/Fox News Digital)
Instead, they argued, he should be sent to Costa Rica, where Homeland Security officials initially offered to send him to coincide with a guilty plea in a separate criminal case in Nashville, where he was charged with two counts of smuggling.
Hours after he rejected his plea, the government sent his lawyers a deportation notice to Uganda. Despite the wording of the notice, the Ugandan government has not yet been asked to occupy Abrego Garcia, let alone consent to it. The detail was one of many spent hours painstakingly uncovering Friday.
Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s attorney told the court that he would be “willing and able to immediately board a plane” to Costa Rica if ICE agreed to fly him there.
His attorney, Andrew Rossman, argued that the court should order his release from immigration detention, arguing that “the government has not and does not detain Mr. Abrego to effectuate lawful removal,” but rather as a punitive measure.
The Costa Rican government agreed to accept Abrego Garcia and outlined certain assurances in writing to the United States, including granting him refugee status and promising not to “refouler” him, or re-deport him to his native El Salvador, in compliance with a 2019 court order from an immigration judge.
100 days of injunction, trial and ‘Teflon Don’: Trump’s biggest test of second term in court
Sinise seemed to agree.
She also expressed new frustration with Trump administration lawyers, who she noted have now twice failed to provide the court with witnesses who could speak to Abrego Garcia’s case.
“What efforts had the administration made before Monday to find a third country that would accept Abrego?” Hinnis asked Trump administration officials at one point during the hearing.
When they struggled to answer, she responded: “It makes me very uneasy.”
Trump administration lawyers are free to appeal any order from Judge Sinise to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, and as the Justice Department’s second lieutenant indicated, they may do so shortly before the court adjourns.
Sinise later warned that in her view, the government had little room for error.
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“I tried really hard to convince you of innocence,” she told the ensign. But at this point, “it’s pretty close to ‘strikeout.'”
