Overview

• U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis denied the Justice Department’s bid to pause proceedings, kept her order barring removal from the continental U.S., and set a Friday evidentiary hearing.
• Xinis ordered the government to file by Wednesday any documentation of steps toward deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini and to produce a witness with firsthand knowledge to testify under oath.
• Government attorneys could not answer basic questions about removal efforts during Monday’s hearing, drawing sharp rebukes from the bench.
• Separately, a Tennessee federal judge found a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness in the timing and public statements around Abrego Garcia’s human-smuggling indictment and authorized discovery, with a status hearing set for Oct. 10.
• Abrego Garcia remains detained at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, and an immigration judge recently denied his bid to reopen his 2019 asylum case, leaving removal risk subject to the Maryland court’s restrictions.