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Inset: An undated photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (CASA). Background: President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are not backing down and have called on a federal judge on Sunday to find the Trump administration in contempt. They allege an “all-of-government effort” to defy court orders, obstruct due process, and slander the Maryland father who was wrongfully deported, only to be brought back recently to face criminal charges, according to his lawyers.
“Although Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia has, at last, returned to the United States following his unlawful removal, claiming the Government has ‘complied with the court’s order’ is entirely misleading,” Abrego Garcia’s legal representation argued in a five-page document.
“The Government flouted rather than followed the orders of this Court and the United States Supreme Court,” the lawyers blasted.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are seeking contempt sanctions in Maryland, where his family filed a federal lawsuit in March to bring the legally protected dad back to the U.S. after he was shipped off on March 15. They say the Trump administration showed how easy it was for Abrego Garcia to be brought back home, calling it the “latest act of contempt” from government officials, according to Sunday’s filing, after months of alleged stonewalling.
“The Government arranged for Abrego Garcia’s return, not to Maryland in compliance with the Supreme Court’s directive … but rather to Tennessee so that he could be charged with a crime in a case that the Government only developed while it was under threat of sanctions,” his lawyers said. “The Government’s convenient ability to return Abrego Garcia in time for a press conference unveiling his indictment puts the lie to its previously feigned powerlessness to comply with this Court’s injunction.”
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Abrego Garcia was transported to the U.S. on Friday after the Trump administration claimed for months that the government had its hands tied and couldn’t do anything to get him back. A legally protected Maryland resident, Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious work prison in El Salvador without due process. His attorneys accused Homeland Security and DOJ officials of defying a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to provide any information regarding what was being done to “facilitate” his return.
A federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia on the criminal charges last month. His indictment alleges that from 2016 to 2025, Abrego Garcia “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.” Abrego Garcia and several other alleged coconspirators are accused of transporting “thousands of undocumented aliens into the U.S., “many of whom” were allegedly members of the MS-13 gang.
Asked by reporters on Friday why Abrego Garcia was only now being indicted — nearly three years after the traffic stop that got him on authorities’ radar — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the charges were based on “new facts” that had come to light since Abrego Garcia’s removal became a political flashpoint.
President Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday he had no role in bringing Abrego Garcia back, saying: “That wasn’t my decision.”