Left: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland and deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, speaks in a hotel restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Press Office Senator Van Hollen, via AP). Right: President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on Air Force One, Tuesday, June 10, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man “wrongfully” deported to El Salvador before being brought back last week, are asking a federal court to sanction and investigate the Trump administration for its “defiance” of court orders regarding his return.
In a scathing 33-page late Wednesday filing, the deportee’s lawyers excoriated the federal government for its “delays and obfuscation,” arguing its actions “prejudiced” Abrego Garcia and left him “with no recourse.” To hear them say it, the administration, or at least some relevant officials, “did not just refuse to obey the Court’s orders, but willfully sought to impede the discovery process” — and such a precedent could be dangerous for future cases.
From Abrego Garcia’s request for discovery sanctions:
The Government’s defiance has not been subtle. It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant. The Defendants’ defiance of judicial orders has been accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this Court’s authority. The Defendants’ defiance of this Court’s discovery orders, in particular, has been egregious, defined by open refusal to produce any evidence of its professed compliance and the meritless assertion of an array of purported privileges to shield its actions from scrutiny.
Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States from El Salvador on Friday. His sudden return came after months of legal disagreements and public feuding between U.S. lawmakers and officials over his deportation, which the administration admitted was due to an “administrative error” — shining a spotlight on the administration’s deportation process.
Upon his arrival in Tennessee, he was charged in federal court with two counts of illegally transporting undocumented migrants into the country.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered federal officials to “facilitate” the Maryland man’s return from El Salvador, a country to which an immigration judge in 2019 said he could not be deported due to his stated fears of persecution. The definition of “facilitate” was contested — and even brought before the Supreme Court — with the administration arguing it didn’t have the authority to return the deportee and even questioning the Maryland federal judge’s jurisdiction to make such an order.
Wednesday’s filing took aim at the government’s questioning of the court’s authority and alleged lack of providing answers.
“While the Government — not Plaintiffs — bears the ultimate burden to establish its compliance with this Court’s order to facilitate return and has failed to do so, its failure to timely produce relevant information in response to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests allows the Government to present a cherry-picked record of compliance,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote, adding that “there is a clear and pressing need to deter the Government and other litigants from engaging in similar obstructive tactics.”
The lawyers added: “The lengths the Government has gone to resist discovery relating to these core questions raises a strong inference that the Government is trying to hide its conduct from the scrutiny of this Court, the Plaintiffs, and the public. What the Government improperly seeks to hide must be exposed for all to see.”
U.S. Justice Department attorneys have argued they complied with the court order to return Abrego Garcia, but his lawyers see the monthslong court battle as “willful noncompliance” — either from the administration as a whole or from specific actors, such as Homeland Security General Counsel Joseph Mazzara, who they believe may have lied.
As such, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are requesting that the court impose sanctions against the administration “for their flagrant, repeated violations of this Court’s discovery orders,” as well as “compel the production of documents previously withheld” or appoint a special master to investigate the extent of the alleged noncompliance.
They made it a point to argue for severe sanctions given how the government “repeatedly thumbed its nose at Plaintiffs and this Court in court filings, hearings, and public statements to the media.” They suggest sanctions ranging from fines and civil contempt to default judgment.
Earlier this week, lawyers for Abrego Garcia also requested that he be released from jail ahead of his trial on the human trafficking charges. Though not in this case, federal prosecutors have also accused him of being an MS-13 gang member — which he has rejected — and other crimes, including trafficking guns and drugs into the U.S.
He remains in federal custody in Tennessee. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Holmes set a hearing for Friday concerning whether Abrego Garcia should be detained as he awaits trial.
