The United States Department of Justice appealed on Saturday a federal court ruling that ordered President Donald Trump’s administration return Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the U.S. after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

In the U.S. District Court of Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis ruled Friday that the Trump administration violated the Immigration and National Security Act because it deported Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran citizen, “without any legal process.” Xinis ordered the Trump administration to bring Garcia back to the U.S. by the end of the day Monday.

The justice department appealed Xinis’ decision on Saturday to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The justice department called the federal judge’s order “indefensible” in its appeal, citing that the U.S. has no jurisdiction over Abrego Garcia, who is currently in prison in El Salvador.

“A judicial order that forces the Executive to engage with a foreign power in a certain way, let alone compel a certain action by a foreign sovereign, is constitutionally intolerable,” the appeal read.

Before Friday’s hearing, Prince George’s County community members rallied in Hyattsville to demand Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Trump administration said on March 31 that it mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia in an “administrative error.”

[UMD community members detail fear, anxiety after Trump’s immigration enforcement orders]

Abrego Garcia was arrested last month by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Maryland and deported to an El Salvadoran prison amid the Trump administration’s nationwide mass deportation efforts, according to the Associated Press. He originally fled El Salvador and came to the U.S. unlawfully around 2011, the outlet reported.

A federal court in 2019 granted Abrego Garcia protection from deportation to El Salvador after he was arrested by ICE officers due to alleged ties to the international gang MS-13, the Associated Press reported.

Saturday’s appeal from the justice department continued to claim that Garcia was an MS-13 member. Abrego Garcia’s alleged affiliation with the gang means that he “has no legal right or basis to be in the United States,” the appeal read.

Abrego Garcia and his lawyers have repeatedly denied Abrego Garcia’s ties to MS-13, according to the Associated Press. The claims were based on a confidential informant’s allegation that Abrego Garcia belonged to a New York MS-13 chapter, the Associated Press reported, but Abrego Garcia never lived in New York.

In Saturday’s appeal, the Trump administration requested that a final decision about the case be made by 5 p.m. Sunday.