The US government plans to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia as soon as Oct. 31, according to a Friday court filing by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), despite a series of federal court rebukes over his wrongful deportation case.

A Salvadoran national who has resided in Maryland for more than a decade, Ábrego García’s case drew national attention when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year despite a court finding that he faced a “well-founded fear” of persecution there. After that removal, the US Supreme Court required the government to “facilitate” his return, and he was repatriated in June 2025.

Because Ábrego García is barred from returning to El Salvador, US officials say they have sought other countries—Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and now Liberia—which have agreed to take him on a “strictly humanitarian and temporary basis.” Such deportations would be part of the federal government’s broader push to carry out third-country removals.

DHS stated, “Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s [sic] closest partners on the African continent.” The department also said that the African country “is committed to the humane treatment of refugees,” and noted that its “national language is English.”

Ábrego García’s attorneys countered that deporting him to a country with which he has no connection, far from his US-based family, is punitive, cruel, and unconstitutional.

In March, Ábrego García and his family filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging that Ábrego García’s deportation violated his constitutional rights and previous court orders. Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the deportation “shocks the conscience” and that “there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal.”

When federal officials later requested a stay, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied the motion. The panel stated in its decision that “[t]he United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process.”

Meanwhile, Ábrego García faces federal human-smuggling charges in Tennessee, which US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw found carries a “realistic likelihood” of vindictive prosecution by the federal government.