A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to return to the U.S. a Maryland man they mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who resides in Maryland, was protected from removal by a judge in 2019.

The Trump administration admitted in court filings earlier this week that it sent him to El Salvdor’s Terrorism Confinement Center, also known as CECOT, due to an “administrative error.”

Abgrego Garcia’s wife, a U.S. citizen, filed the suit that led to Friday's decision. He's the only one of the more than 200 men sent to the prison who has been ordered to be returned to the United States.

The order raises questions about what steps the Trump administration might take to secure his return, having previously said the case raises “difficult questions.”

“The United States does not have custody over Abrego Garcia. They acknowledge that there may be ‘difficult questions of redressability’ in this case, reflecting their recognition that Defendants do not have ‘the power to produce’ Abrego Garcia from CECOT in El Salvador,” the Justice Department wrote earlier this week.

“The most they ask for is a court order that the United States entreat—or even cajole—a close ally in its fight against transnational cartels.”

The Trump administration has accused Garcia Abrego, like others deported to the prison, of being a member of a gang.

But Garcia Abrego’s lawyers have denied that he is a member of MS-13, saying he fled to the U.S. to escape gang violence in El Salvador. The allegation is based on a confidential informant’s claim in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of a chapter in New York, where he has never lived.

The Associated Press contributed.