Excerpts from a NY Times article:

Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court in Maryland had called the hearing to give the Trump administration a chance to demonstrate evidence of lawful plans to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia soon, without which she said she was inclined to release him.

If Judge Xinis orders Mr. Abrego Garcia released, it would be his first time walking free since he was briefly released for three days in August, after two judges ruled against Mr. Abrego Garcia’s continued detention for criminal charges the administration is separately pursuing against him. The release would also amount to the latest judicial rebuke of the Trump administration in a long and twisting case that began with what officials admitted was an “administrative error” that led to Mr. Abrego Garcia’s detention in a Salvadoran prison.

Central to the argument on Friday was whether administration officials had found a country where to take Mr. Abrego Garcia, who has been barred from deportation to his native El Salvador because he fears his life would be in danger there.

The Trump administration had previously floated Uganda and Eswatini as the primary options. But the government’s key witness, John Schultz, said no African countries to which the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia had agreed to take him.

For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador. Mr. Schultz not only could not explain why the administration had refused to consider Costa Rica but also said he had been unaware that Costa Rica had provided such assurances to Mr. Abrego Garcia.

“You’re not even close,” the judge told administration lawyers at one point during the six-hour session. “We’re getting to ‘three strikes and you’re out.’”