GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — On Monday, a federal judge is set to deliberate on whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be placed back into immigration custody, just a little over a week after his release.

The case of Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, has become a focal point in the ongoing immigration debate. Since August, he has been detained, with the government expressing intentions to remove him to countries such as Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and most recently, Liberia. However, no steps have been taken towards deporting him to Costa Rica, the one country he has consented to relocate to. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis from Maryland has even accused the government of misleading her by claiming Costa Rica was unwilling to accept him, which she found to be untrue.

Judge Xinis criticized the government for repeatedly ignoring Costa Rica as a feasible option and for threatening to deport Abrego Garcia to African nations that had not agreed to accept him. She also admonished them for falsely presenting Liberia as the sole viable choice, suggesting that his detention did not serve the ‘basic purpose’ of expeditious third-country removal.

In an order dated December 11, Xinis mandated Abrego Garcia’s release from immigration detention, citing that a 2019 immigration judge had failed to issue a formal removal order. Without such an order, deportation to any country is not legally permissible.

Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland for several years with his American wife and child, initially entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager. In 2019, he was granted protection from deportation due to threats from a gang targeting his family back home. Despite this, he was mistakenly deported in March, and it took Supreme Court intervention for officials to bring him back. Nonetheless, the government remains committed to deporting him to a third country, arguing that he cannot stay in the U.S.

In filings last week, government attorneys argued that, with or without a final order of removal, they are still working to deport Abrego Garcia, so they can legally detain him during the process.

“If there is no final order of removal, immigration proceedings are ongoing, and Petitioner is subject to pre-final order detention,” they wrote.

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “because immigration proceedings ‘are civil, not criminal’ detention must be ‘nonpunitive.’” They argued that in Abrego Garcia’s case, detention is punitive because the government wants to be allowed to hold him indefinitely without a viable plan to deport him.

“If immigration detention does not serve the legitimate purpose of effectuating reasonably foreseeable removal, it is punitive, potentially indefinite, and unconstitutional,” they wrote.