GREENBELT, Md. (CN) - A federal judge Friday appeared likely to issue a temporary restraining order that would temporarily prevent the federal government from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a yet-undecided third country upon his release from criminal custody next week. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the hearing following four hours of less-than-informative witness testimony Thursday from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who could not provide details about the government's plans for Abrego Garcia and seemed to learn most of the facts about the case from news reports. 

The Barack Obama appointee called attorneys back Friday to argue the merits of a potential temporary restraining order that would create a 48- to 72-hour window in which the government could not try to remove Abrego Garcia and grant his attorneys a chance to challenge any removal order. 

Xinis slammed the Justice Department for suggesting her concerns that Abrego Garcia would be quickly removed without due process were merely "speculative."

She said that since the day Abrego Garcia was arrested without a warrant and summarily deported to the infamous mega prison CECOT in El Salvador, the government has committed several constitutional violations that left her little reason to give it the benefit of the doubt. 

"You have taken presumption of regularity and destroyed it, in my view," Xinis told Justice Department attorney Sarmad Khojasteh, referring to a legal principle that courts should assume government officials have properly followed the law. 

Abrego Garcia currently faces federal human trafficking charges - levied upon his return from CECOT - and could be released or handed over to ICE custody following a July 16 hearing before U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. in the Middle District of Tennessee. 

Crenshaw, also an Obama appointee, could moot the issue before Xinis and relieve the need for any temporary restraining order by keeping Abrego Garcia in pretrial detention. 

However, if he does order his release next Wednesday, the Justice Department has indicated he would be swiftly transferred to ICE custody - thanks to a written request known as an "immigration detainer" - where his case would then be handled by a case manager from the New Orleans ICE Field Office. 

Neither Khojasteh nor Thursday's witness, Assistant Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Thomas Giles, could identify who specifically would oversee Abrego Garcia's case upon his potential transfer to ICE custody, asserting that such an officer would be assigned only after the transfer. 

Xinis said the suggestion "defies reality." 

"You're telling me that your clients, who have a vested interest in winning this case, are just going to leave this up to a desk officer?" Xinis asked. 

Khojasteh argued that, in the government's view, Abrego Garcia and his attorneys had already won the case because he had been returned to the United States. The attorneys' request that Abrego Garcia be transferred back to Maryland, or the nearest ICE facility in Philadelphia, was therefore unwarranted. 

Giles testified Thursday that any decision as to where Abrego Garcia would be transferred was based solely on available bed space at detention facilities and could result in his being sent across the country once again. 

Andrew Rossman, of Quinn Emanuel and representing Abrego Garcia, argued that there was clear court precedent, most recently in the cases of Georgetown professor Badar Khan Suri and Tufts student Rmeysa ztrk, that a federal judge can order an immigrant's return to their home district and ignore the government's protestations of bed space. 

He urged Xinis to grant a pending motion to return his client to Maryland, where he and his colleagues would be better able to challenge any potential third-country removal order. 

Rossman noted, however, that per a March 30 Department of Homeland Security memo outlining procedures for third-country removals, immigrants could be removed to certain countries that've provided assurances the immigrants won't face persecution or removal there "without the need for further procedures."

Giles testified Thursday that the only two countries that have made such assurances are Mexico and South Sudan. 

Rossman expressed concern that the list could soon include El Salvador if the State Department simply finds such assurances credible. 

"The way I read it, if those assurances are received, that's the end of the game," Rossman said. "That's it, game over, off you go to El Salvador, South Sudan, Mexico or somewhere else."

"The government is not interested in a fair game; it's interested in a rigged game," Rossman added. "It wants to have unchecked power to do what they will, including removing people to other countries."

Source: Courthouse News Service