FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia joins supporters in a protest rally outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Friday identified the West African nation of Liberia as the location for the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, noting his deportation could come as soon as Oct. 31.

In a Friday court filing in the District of Maryland, the Department of Justice argued that Liberia is a close partner with the United States and that the federal government has received assurances from Liberia that Abrego Garcia will not be harmed if he is deported there. They added that Abrego Garcia, who has a wife and family in Maryland, has not expressed fear of being removed to Liberia.

“Although Petitioner has identified more than twenty countries that he purports to fear would persecute or torture him if he were removed there, Liberia is not on that list,” according to the filing.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his Maryland case could not be immediately reached for comment.

The new filing comes shortly after attorneys for Abrego Garcia in a separate case in Tennessee this week requested to subpoena Trump DOJ official Todd Blanche in connection with Abrego Garcia’s claim that his criminal case by the Trump administration is vindictive. That hearing is set to start Nov. 4.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to those charges, which accuse him of the human trafficking of immigrants in an incident stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.

Detention challenged

Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful deportation cast a spotlight on the president’s aggressive immigration crackdown, is challenging his detention on the grounds that the Trump administration is using his imprisonment as punishment rather than for the purpose of removal.

Abrego Garcia has stated he is willing to be deported to Costa Rica, which has agreed to accept the longtime Maryland man as a refugee.

Because Abrego Garcia has deportation protections from his home country of El Salvador, the Trump administration must find a third country that is willing to accept him and a country where Abrego Garcia believes he will not face harm or persecution.

The Trump administration so far has floated sending Abrego Garcia to one of three nations in Africa — Ghana, Eswatini and Uganda.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis found little evidence the Trump administration has made any effort to remove Abrego Garcia either to the southern African nation of Eswatini or Costa Rica.

At that hearing, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys told Xinis they have not received an answer from the federal government as to why officials won’t remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica.

Detained in Pennsylvania

Xinis is currently mulling whether or not to order the release of Abrego Garcia, who is detained at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Pennsylvania.

Any indefinite stay would likely be unconstitutional, per a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that does not allow for immigrants to be detained longer than six months if the federal government is making no efforts to remove them.

In March, Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, where he detailed his experience of psychological and physical torture.