Immigration fights usually look like policy arguments. This one is mostly a procedural collision between two kinds of government power: the executive branch’s authority to remove a noncitizen, and a federal court’s authority to pause that removal while legal questions are sorted out.
In the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, the Trump administration is asking a judge to dissolve an injunction that prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement from immediately detaining him again so he can quickly be deported to Liberia. The Department of Justice argues the injunction is not just overbroad. It says the order creates the very delay the court then cites as a reason to keep Abrego Garcia from being held.
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What DOJ wants
The Justice Department’s request is straightforward: dissolve the court order that blocks ICE from taking Abrego Garcia back into custody for the purpose of carrying out removal.
In its filing, DOJ framed the situation as a legal paradox created by the court itself. One line captures the government’s position: “The Court cannot both impose the impediment that delays removal and consequently prolongs detention and, at the same time, hold that the resulting detention is impermissibly prolonged.”
The government also warned that a permanent judicial barrier to removal would cut against separation-of-powers principles, writing: “Any attempt by this Court to permanently enjoin the government from exercising its authority to remove the Petitioner from this country is in direct contradiction to established judicial norms, and a clear error of law.”
DOJ further argued that dissolution is warranted because the court’s prior injunction against removal is, in the government’s words, the “sole impediment” to Abrego Garcia’s prompt removal.
Why the case matters
Abrego Garcia, 31, has become a flash point in the national immigration debate since March 2025, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 court order in what Trump administration officials acknowledged was an “administrative error.”
The administration claims Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13. His lawyers deny that allegation.
The Supreme Court later ruled the government had to work to bring him back to the United States. He returned in June and is now facing federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee tied to a 2022 traffic stop. He has pleaded not guilty and is seeking dismissal, arguing vindictive and selective prosecution.
Abrego Garcia immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager and has been under ICE supervision.
December release and later injunction
In December, a federal judge released Abrego Garcia from detention on the ground that the administration had not obtained the final notice of a removal order required to deport him to a third country.
That mattered because the 2019 order does not forbid removal everywhere. It specifically prevents Abrego Garcia from being deported to El Salvador after an immigration judge determined he faced danger from a gang that had threatened his family.
Separately, last month, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis agreed to convert her earlier emergency order blocking ICE from immediately detaining Abrego Garcia again into a longer-term form of injunctive relief sought by his lawyers. She said the Trump administration failed to provide the court with any “good reason to believe” it plans to remove him to a third country in the “reasonably foreseeable future” and instead “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.”
Liberia vs. Costa Rica
The current dispute is not only whether the government can remove Abrego Garcia. It is also where and how removal can happen given the existing court protections.
Abrego Garcia has said he is willing to be sent to Costa Rica. His attorney said in December his client was willing to leave for Costa Rica immediately and that the country had given him asylum status months earlier. But acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said he will instead be removed to Liberia.
Xinis has criticized the government’s posture on possible destinations. In December, she wrote: “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,” Xinis said.
What comes next
The administration has asked the judge to rule on dissolving the injunction by April 17. If the injunction is lifted, ICE could move to detain Abrego Garcia again while it attempts to carry out removal to Liberia. If it remains in place, the government will continue litigating over whether the court’s restrictions can stand while removal planning remains uncertain.