Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are trying to get a federal judge to order his return to Maryland, but that state’s sanctuary laws might prevent that from happening.

A senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the district court that Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not maintain any long-term detention space in the state because Maryland law has forbidden local jurisdictions from renting beds to the agency.

“Prior to the Dignity Not Detention Act, ICE had access to four detention centers in Maryland. Currently, ICE has access to no detention centers in Maryland,” Nikita Baker, acting director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said in a sworn declaration. “All aliens that are arrested by ICE in Maryland are transferred to other ICE facilities outside the state of Maryland.”

Mr. Abrego Garcia is the illegal immigrant from El Salvador at the center of the highest-profile deportation battle of the Trump administration.

To the administration, he is an MS-13 member who deserved the speedy March deportation that sent him to a Salvadoran terrorist prison. To his supporters, he’s a “Maryland man” whose immigration arrest and deportation to El Salvador were “unlawful.”

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ruled the deportation a violation of his rights and ordered him brought back. The administration resisted for months, even as it secretly worked on a criminal investigation that has produced a charge of human smuggling and uncharged accusations of soliciting child pornography and trafficking guns and drugs.

Once it had secured an indictment, the federal government brought Mr. Abrego Garcia back — to Tennessee, where the indictment was handed up.

A federal judge in that case has said the charges against him aren’t enough to sustain pretrial detention, so the administration has said ICE will likely keep him in immigration detention, based on a standing deportation order from 2019.

His lawyers have asked Judge Xinis to order him brought to Maryland if he is released from pretrial detention. They say they fear the government will try an illegal deportation otherwise.

“The court can order Abrego Garcia’s return to Maryland, which is where he was on March 12,” his lawyers told Judge Xinis on Monday.

The Department of Justice has told Judge Xinis that her case is moot because Mr. Abrego Garcia has been returned to the U.S.

Government lawyers battled against returning him to Maryland, saying the judge has been able to issue orders that reached him as far as El Salvador, so being in the state itself is not necessary.

“Ultimately, this case challenged Abrego Garcia’s removal from the United States, which has now been reversed. Resolution of the criminal charges against him is for the Middle District of Tennessee, and any immigration proceedings are playing out in real time. There is no legal basis for this Court to interfere with either,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign said.

Maryland’s Dignity Not Detention Act was enacted in 2021, with the Legislature voting to override then-Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto.

It was part of a nationwide anti-ICE movement on the left, which fought against ICE’s ability to detain illegal immigrants.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.