Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported by the Trump administration earlier this year, are asking a federal judge to sanction the government for allegedly refusing to cooperate to facilitate his return to the United States.
Abrego Garcia has been at the center of a high-profile immigration dispute since his deportation to El Salvador, which immigration officials justified by alleging ties to the MS-13 gang. He returned to the U.S. last week after the Trump administration delayed compliance with a Supreme Court ruling that ordered his return for nearly two months.
In a motion filed Wednesday, Abrego Garcia's attorneys argued that the federal government failed to provide meaningful information about actions taken to comply with court orders aimed at securing his return.
"The government's defiance has not been subtle. It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant," the attorneys wrote in the filing, as reported by Reuters.
The motion asks U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to find that the Trump administration did not take all available steps to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. It also seeks monetary sanctions and requests that officials be compelled to release documents that may have been previously withheld under claims of legal privilege.
Abrego Garcia appeared in a Tennessee courtroom on June 6, shortly after returning to the United States, where he was accused of trafficking undocumented migrants.
The man was mistakenly deported to the infamous CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador in March despite a court order barring his removal to the country due to legitimate fears for his safety. His legal team is now asking the court to appoint a third-party "special master" to investigate the government's compliance with court rulings, CNN reported.
"Nearly 60 days, 10 orders, three depositions, three discovery disputes, three motions for stay, two hearings, a week-long stay, and a failed appeal later, the plaintiffs still have seen no evidence to suggest that the defendants took any steps—much less 'all available steps'—to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the United States 'as soon as possible' so that his case could be handled as it would have been had he not been unlawfully deported," his attorneys wrote.
CNN also reported that Judge Xinis ordered several Trump administration officials to sit for depositions. According to Abrego Garcia's lawyers, the officials refused to answer many questions, citing legal privileges.
"More than 90 times, the government instructed them not to answer on the basis of an asserted privilege," the lawyers told the judge. "And when they did answer, the witnesses uniformly testified that they lacked personal knowledge of the very topics about which they had previously provided sworn declarations."
The attorneys further alleged that acting Department of Homeland Security General Counsel Joseph Mazzara, the lead government attorney on the case, may have provided a false testimony.
Earlier this week, one of Abrego Garcia's lawyers, Chris Newman, said in an interview that the case and its outcome will determine constitutional protections for all Americans.
"The Trump administration is very invested in making this a referendum on the immigration debate, which, as you know, has become coarsened and polarized," Newman said. "And that is one way to look at it. And I think certainly a lot of people view it that way. I don't view it that way. I view this as a core constitutional order case, a core due process case. And it just so happens that a Salvadoran immigrant is defending bedrock constitutional protections for all of us."
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