A federal judge on Dec. 12 temporarily forbade immigration authorities from re-arresting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, after she ordered his release the day before.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued the order in response to an emergency petition by Garcia’s lawyers, who were concerned that immigration agents would pick him up after a hearing at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Baltimore Field Office on Friday morning.

Xinis’s order asked the parties to issue briefs about whether the emergency order should be extended, and to prepare for a hearing on the matter after Dec. 17.

She also clarified, at the request of Garcia, that her previous orders blocking Garcia’s removal from the United States without court permission and without 72 hours’ notice are still in effect.

The judge had ordered ICE to let Garcia go free on Dec. 11, citing a lack of a removal order.

Garcia, an El Salvador native, had sought an order in 2019 blocking his deportation back to his home country due to fear of persecution.

Earlier this year, he was picked up by ICE and deported to El Salvador’s CECOT terrorism confinement center. After his case gained media attention, he was eventually returned to the United States, where he was detained again, pending deportation.

Garcia has expressed fear of deportation to most South and Central American countries. The government has tried to deport him to various African countries, including Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana, but all have refused to take him.

Most recently, the government sought to send him to Liberia, but Garcia has said that he wants to be sent to Costa Rica.

Xinis, in her order of release, questioned the government’s motives in holding Garcia for so long without actually deporting him.

She wrote that the government had previously asserted that Liberia was the only option, since Costa Rica refused to take him.

“But Costa Rica had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there,” she wrote.

She then pointed to media statements by Costa Rican Minister of Public Security Mario Zamora Cordero, who insisted his country would accept Garcia.

“[The government’s] persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” she wrote.

The Justice Department declined a request to comment on the case.

Garcia’s future is uncertain: his claim for asylum was rejected in October, but he is seeking to reopen his case.

In a separate case, Garcia is due to stand trial in Nashville, Tennessee, for human smuggling charges stemming back to 2022. He has asked a judge to dismiss the case; an evidentiary hearing set for Dec. 8 has been postponed.