ICE Official to Testify on Steps to Deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia

(LIBERIA) An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is set to appear before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to explain, in detail, how the Trump administration has moved to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, in a case that has already seen a mistaken removal to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, a Supreme Court order, and accusations of retaliation from his lawyers.

The testimony by ICE official Robert Cerna, expected in federal court as the judge weighs whether to lift an injunction on deportation, will focus on the steps taken to send Abrego Garcia to Liberia, a country he has never lived in and with which he has no personal ties. As of November 20, 2025, the court is still blocking his removal there while it reviews whether the government has followed due process and whether promises from Liberia about his safety can be trusted.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, became the center of a major immigration controversy on March 15, 2025, when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison despite a court order that barred his removal to that country. The order was based on a finding that he had a credible fear of persecution if returned to El Salvador. Yet he was nevertheless placed on a deportation flight and taken to CECOT, a sprawling high-security facility that has become a symbol of El Salvador’s harsh anti-gang campaign.

The U.S. government later admitted this was an “administrative error.” In sworn testimony, ICE official Robert Cerna said that

“Abrego Garcia’s protected status had not appeared on the flight manifest for the deportations”

and that he was listed as an “alternate” who took another detainee‘s place when some were removed. That explanation, and the use of the term “administrative error,” has fueled anger among immigrant advocates and sharpened scrutiny on how such a serious violation of a court order could occur.

Following an order from the Supreme Court, Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States in June 2025. He was then sent to Tennessee to face human smuggling charges, to which he pleaded not guilty. Standing before reporters in June, Attorney General Pam Bondi said:

“He will be prosecuted in our country, sentenced in our country, if convicted, and then returned after completion of his sentence.”

That statement made clear that the Trump administration intended to remove him from the United States if he was convicted and after he served any sentence imposed.

Even as the criminal case moved forward, the administration pressed ahead with plans to deport him, not to El Salvador but to Liberia. In court filings, the Department of Justice argued that “all legal hurdles had been cleared” for a removal to Liberia and said that the West African nation had given “sufficient and credible” assurances that he would not be harmed there. Those assurances, and the choice of Liberia as a destination for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, have become the core of the new legal battle now before Judge Xinis.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say the government’s actions are not only unlawful but vindictive. Led by immigration attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, the legal team has accused the Trump administration of using both criminal prosecution and third-country deportation as tools of retaliation for his earlier court victories. They wrote:

“The Government insists that the unreasoned determination of a single immigration officer—who concluded that Abrego Garcia failed to establish that it is ‘more likely than not’ that he will be persecuted or tortured in Liberia—satisfies due process. It does not.”

In another filing, his attorneys argued that the government’s decisions follow a clear pattern tied to judges’ rulings in his favor.

“The timeline suggests a pattern: when the Government received orders it disliked in Abrego Garcia’s civil case challenging his unlawful removal to El Salvador; it initiated a criminal prosecution in retaliation; and when it received orders it disliked in Abrego Garcia’s criminal case, it initiated third-country removal efforts in retaliation,”

they stated. Those words now form part of the record Judge Xinis will weigh as she decides whether the administration’s push to send him to Liberia is lawful or punitive.

Judge Paula Xinis, who has been overseeing the case, has openly questioned the government’s insistence on Liberia. In a recent hearing, she pressed Justice Department lawyers about why they were continuing to fight to remove him to a country where he has no ties, even though another country is ready to accept him. She asked:

“Is there any insight you can shed on why we are continuing this hearing when there is a third country Mr. Abrego could go to tomorrow?”

Abrego Garcia has formally designated Costa Rica as the country where he wishes to be removed, and his lawyers say Costa Rica has agreed to receive him.

For his legal team, the refusal to send him to Costa Rica, despite that country’s willingness, is a telling detail. They argue it is further proof of retaliation and an effort to maximize the hardship he faces. In their view, choosing Liberia over Costa Rica, when Costa Rica has agreed to accept him and when there is no evidence of personal connection between Abrego Garcia and Liberia, undercuts the government’s claim that this is a neutral administrative decision.

The ICE official’s testimony is now central to resolving those questions. According to court documents, Robert Cerna is expected to provide a step-by-step account of the administrative process surrounding both the mistaken deportation to El Salvador and the current plan to send him to Liberia. He is expected to explain the sequence of events that put Abrego Garcia on the El Salvador flight in March 2025, how his protected status was supposedly missed on the flight manifest, and why he was designated as an “alternate” who replaced another detainee.

Cerna is also expected to describe how U.S. officials approached Liberia, what kind of assurances were requested and received, and how the Department of Homeland Security and ICE evaluated those promises of safety. In addition, he is due to explain the rationale for refusing to deport him to Costa Rica, despite his explicit designation of that country and Costa Rica’s agreement to accept him, and to outline the current status of removal proceedings and coordination with Liberian authorities.

The hearing will effectively test whether the government can convince Judge Xinis that its efforts to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia meet constitutional standards of fairness, or whether her injunction against removal should remain in place. The court is examining both the substance of the government’s risk assessment about Liberia and the process that led to it, including the role of the “single immigration officer” whose finding—that it was not ‘more likely than not’ that he would be persecuted or tortured there—now underpins the government’s position.

Abrego Garcia remains detained in Pennsylvania while all of this plays out, caught between the criminal case in Tennessee and the removal proceedings related to Liberia. He is in a legal limbo shaped by several overlapping legal tracks: his earlier civil challenge to the wrongful deportation to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, the pending human smuggling charges, and the ongoing fight over third-country deportation. Each of those strands has fed into the others, with his attorneys arguing that the government’s reaction to losing one battle has been to open another front.

For the Trump administration, the case is a test of its broader use of third-country deportations, where people are removed not to their home countries but to other nations that have agreed to take them. The Department of Justice has framed the push to deport him to Liberia as a lawful exercise of executive power, describing Liberia’s promises as “sufficient and credible” and insisting that “all legal hurdles had been cleared.” Officials argue that once criminal proceedings end and if removal orders are in place, they have both the authority and the responsibility to carry them out.

For immigrant rights lawyers, the case is a stark example of the dangers they see in that approach. The mistaken transfer to El Salvador’s CECOT facility in March, carried out in violation of a court order, has become a powerful symbol for them of what can go wrong when deportations proceed at speed and with limited oversight. Cerna’s explanation that

“Abrego Garcia’s protected status had not appeared on the flight manifest for the deportations”

and that he was an “alternate” on that flight is now being held up in court as evidence of systemic failure, not just an isolated slip.

The stakes of the current hearings go beyond one man. Judges, lawyers and advocacy groups are watching closely to see how far an administration can go in choosing third countries like Liberia over destinations proposed by migrants themselves, such as Costa Rica in this case, and how robust the courts will be in checking those choices. The proceedings will also send a signal about how strictly the government must obey court orders in complex immigration cases, especially after an admitted “administrative error” that sent someone to a high-security prison abroad.

Judge Xinis has not yet said when she will decide whether to lift the injunction blocking deportation to Liberia. Another hearing is scheduled to review the ICE official’s testimony and to examine whether the government has complied with previous court orders, including those related to his return from El Salvador. Her questions so far, especially her pointed reference to the “third country Mr. Abrego could go to tomorrow,” suggest she will probe hard on why Liberia has been put at the center of the government’s plan.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and its removal operations, has said publicly in other contexts that it aims to carry out deportations in line with U.S. law and court rulings. Its general enforcement and removal procedures are laid out on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. In this case, however, it is up to the federal court in Maryland to decide whether the agency and Justice Department lawyers have done so in practice in pursuing removal to Liberia.

For now, Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in detention, his fate tied to competing narratives. On one side, the government says it is simply enforcing immigration law, backed by an internal finding about the risks he would face in Liberia and by diplomatic assurances it calls “sufficient and credible.” On the other, his attorneys describe a man shuttled from Maryland to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison by “administrative error,” then pulled back by a Supreme Court order, charged in Tennessee after he challenged that removal, and now steered toward Liberia while Costa Rica waits in the wings.

The coming testimony from Robert Cerna will not only revisit the “administrative error” that sent him to El Salvador on March 15, 2025, but also lay bare how and why Liberia became the next destination in the government’s sights. What Judge Xinis decides after hearing from Cerna and both sides’ lawyers will shape not only the future of one Salvadoran national from Maryland, but also the boundaries of how the United States can use third-country deportations in the years ahead.