Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a judge in Maryland on Thursday to sanction Trump officials with severe fines and other penalties.
The attorneys claimed the Trump administration “egregiously defied court orders.” Garcia’s attorneys argued Trump officials misleadingly told a judge for months that it could not retrieve Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where authorities mistakenly deported him in March. But the administration’s decision to return him to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee last week proved they had the power all along to bring him back, the attorneys argued.
“The Government’s defiance has not been subtle,” Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote in court papers. “It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant.”
Abrego Garcia’s family sued the Trump administration in March after the Salvadoran man, who entered the country illegally around 2012 and was living in Maryland, was abruptly deported to a Salvadoran terrorist prison.
Department of Justice attorneys told the court Garcia’s deportation to the prison was a mistake, but they insisted for months that the Trump administration could not reverse the error because it had no control over El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued their client, an alleged member of the MS-13 gang, had not received sufficient due process. A lower court and the Supreme Court agreed and ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return so that his case could be handled in a manner consistent with immigration laws.
On Thursday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys cited dozens of remarks that Trump officials made outside of court that showed they were not planning to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in April, for instance, that Abrego Garcia “is not coming back to our country. . . . There is no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none.”
“The Defendants’ defiance of judicial orders has been accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this Court’s authority,” Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote.
On Friday, Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to charges of human trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Garcia’s legal team told U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Friday that they have had time to review the indictment, and Garcia understands what he is accused of, before he formally entered the plea, which stems from a 2022 traffic stop.
Abrego Garcia is charged with the trafficking of undocumented migrants and conspiring with others to do so.
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This guy is a criminal and here illegally. Deport him and send the lawyers with him.
And they wonder why some people don’t like lawyers. Why don’t they offer suggestions on how to remove the undocumented immigrants from the country? Grammarly wants me to use the term “undocumented immigrants. I like illegals better.
Hope the sob criminal gets 20 years