DHS now wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia

State of play: Abrego Garcia is currently being held in Pennsylvania, awaiting a formal notice of deportation to another country.

• U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled in August that the administration lacked authority to immediately remove Abrego Garcia without meeting specific legal conditions.

Driving the news: The Justice Department said in Friday's filing that Abrego Garcia identified more than 20 countries where he fears persecution or torture, but Liberia was not one of them.

• "Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States's closest partners on the African continent," the filing said.
• The department expects to deport him as soon as Oct. 31, the filing said.

Catch up quick: Trump has repeatedly claimed Abrego Garcia is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, and the DOJ has charged him with human smuggling.

• He was returned to the U.S. in June to face those charges and pleaded not guilty in Tennessee federal court.

• After his release from Tennessee jail, ICE detained him again and transferred him to an immigration detention facility in Baltimore.

What they're saying: "Having struck out with Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia — a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland," Abrego Garcia's lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told Axios.

•  "Costa Rica has agreed to accept him as a refugee, and remains a viable and lawful option."
• "Instead, the government has chosen yet another path that feels designed to inflict maximum hardship," he said. "Their actions are punitive, cruel and unconstitutional."