A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday will hear arguments over whether to allow Homeland Security to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia.

Court filings in recent weeks have laid out the legal battle between the federal government and lawyers representing Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man and Beltsville resident who has been fighting deportation and criminal charges for months, and whose case has gotten national attention.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia in late October, but a preliminary injunction issued in August by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis mandates that he be kept in the United States.

The government has asked Xinis to lift the injunction. John Cantú, the acting assistant director for the Removal Division of Enforcement and Removal Operations at ICE, will testify at Thursday’s hearing about the government’s moves to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers oppose lifting the injunction and have requested an immigration judge hear why he is fearful Liberia will persecute him or send him back to his home country of El Salvador.

The fight between the two parties has been ongoing since Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 court order that prohibited his removal to the Central American country due to a threat of gang persecution.

The move prompted outcry from the public and politicians, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia when he was in detention in El Salvador. Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee.

Now, if U.S. officials want to deport him, they must find a third country to take Abrego Garcia and receive assurances that country will not return him to El Salvador or persecute him. Liberia has said it would take him on “a strictly humanitarian and temporary basis.”

The U.S. government said in filings that the injunction should be dissolved under a “March 30 policy,” which was guidance sent by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that explained new procedures for third-country removals. Under this guidance, the government argues it has fulfilled its responsibilities in processing Abrego Garcia’s fear of removal claim, which included an interview with an immigration officer who denied his claim.

If Abrego Garcia is to be deported, his lawyers have asked for him to be sent to Costa Rica, which has assured it would give him legal status and not deport him. The government’s lawyers have said there needs to be further negotiations with Costa Rica, while Liberia is ready to accept Abrego Garica.

Liberia, a West African country that the U.S. State Department has previously said has a record of violating human rights, is the fourth African country that the government has selected for his removal. The others — Eswatini, Ghana and Uganda — have all declined to accept Abrego Garcia.

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s criminal case continues to play out in Tennessee. In early December, two evidentiary hearings will be held to test whether the government had vindictive motives in prosecuting him for felony smuggling charges when he was returned to the United States this summer.

Prosecutors have also filed additional evidence against Abrego Garcia, accusing him of working with a gang known as MS-13 to transport people within the U.S. illegally.

They say Abrego Garcia worked with Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, a man convicted of smuggling migrants who was released from federal prison early and allowed to stay in the United States, the Associated Press reported. Reyes will be a key witness in the trial. The government said another witness will testify that Abrego Garcia attempted to recruit them into the smuggling scheme.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said the federal government has “waged a campaign of retaliation” against their client since March. The burden is now on the government to prove that it did not have vindictive motives when it brought charges against Abrego Garcia.