Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man at the center of a protracted legal battle, is to be deported to the West African nation of Liberia by October 31, according to a new court filing.

Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign said in the Friday filing that Liberia is a “thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent” with a commitment to human rights. The filing also noted that while Mr. Abrego Garcia has listed over 20 countries where he fears persecution, Liberia is not among them.

The development is the latest in a contentious deportation case that began in the spring when Mr. Garcia was deported to his native El Salvador, despite an immigration judge’s order protecting him from removal to that specific country. A federal judge subsequently ordered his return to the United States.

Upon returning, the administration brought a criminal charge of human smuggling against him, stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. However, a judge in that case ordered his release pending trial, leading immigration officials to promptly re-arrest him for deportation. He has been in immigration detention in Pennsylvania ever since.

Under the standing deportation order, Mr. Garcia cannot be sent to El Salvador due to threats from the 18th Street gang, a rival to MS-13, with which U.S. officials have alleged his affiliation. This has led the government to seek a “third country” willing to accept him. Previous attempts to secure his removal to Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana were unsuccessful.

The plan to deport him to Liberia has drawn sharp criticism from his legal team and political allies.

“After failed attempts with Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to Liberia, a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland,” his attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement. 

The lawyer argued that the government was ignoring a viable option. “Costa Rica stands ready to accept him as a refugee,” he said. “Yet the government has chosen a course calculated to inflict maximum hardship. These actions are punitive, cruel and unconstitutional.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Garcia, also condemned the move, arguing it denies his right to face the pending criminal charges.

“The Trump administration has been desperately shopping for faraway countries they can ship Kilmar Abrego Garcia to in order to deny his constitutional due process right to defend himself against the charges they have brought,” the Democrat said.

The deportation would effectively end the criminal case against him. Mr. Garcia has also applied for asylum in a new attempt to block his removal.