The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a lower court order to return a Maryland resident, who is also a Salvadoran national, mistakenly deported last month to El Salvador. 

The Justice Department is arguing before the high court that the judge who ruled the deportee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, must be returned overstepped his authority. 

The administration also argued since Garcia was no longer in U.S. custody there was no way to get him back, according to The Associated Press.

Garcia had a legal order that prohibited him from being sent home. He was deported March 15 in a series of flights of alleged illegal gang members to El Salvador. 

He is a Maryland resident who got a legal status known as "withholding of removal" in 2019 after a judge determined he would be persecuted by gangs if he went to El Salvador.