Kilmar Abrego Garcia wants a federal judge to punish Donald Trump’s administration after top officials repeatedly branded him a gang member and wife beater, among other “highly prejudicial, inflammatory, and false statements” about the wrongly deported Salvadoran immigrant, according to his attorneys.
A judge issued a gag order in October that blocks officials from making “any extrajudicial statements” that could compromise a fair trial against Abrego Garcia, who is battling criminal charges in one court while seeking protection against his deportation in another.
Greg Bovino, the top border patrol official for Trump's mass deportation campaign, has since labeled him an “MS-13 gang member,” a “wife beater,” and an “alien smuggler” while also calling the judge overseeing a criminal case against him an “activist” and “extremist” during appearances on Fox News and Newsmax this month.
His statements follow an avalanche of attacks against Abrego Garcia, who is fighting to stay in the country with his wife and U.S. citizen children after his release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in a case that has been a lightning rod in Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
Days after winning his release from ICE detention, his attorneys returned to a different court Monday to argue against the government’s ongoing attempts to re-arrest him. Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis is keeping an order in place that blocks the Trump administration from detaining him until at least December 30, allowing Abrego Garcia to stay with his family through Christmas.
Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to a brutal prison in his home country in March over what government officials admitted was due to an “error,” and several federal judges and a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return after his “illegal” arrest.
But the government spent weeks battling court orders for his return while officials launched a barrage of attacks against him, declaring that he would never again step foot in the country.
He was then abruptly returned in June to face allegations that he illegally moved other immigrants across the country. He has pleaded not guilty.
ICE swiftly brought him back into custody after a judge allowed him to stay out of jail pending trial in his criminal case.
Top officials at the Department of Justice — including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — personally oversaw the decision to criminally charge Abrego Garcia, according to a sealed court document that was mistakenly revealed in an unredacted filing over the weekend.
Blanche’s deputy, Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, played a “leading role in the government’s decision to prosecute,” Abreo Garcia’s lawyers wrote, citing an order from Tennessee District Judge Waverly Crenshaw.
Since he left ICE custody in August, the administration has tried to deport him to at least six different countries, including African nations Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda.
But officials made no attempt to deport him to the one country he has agreed to go to: Costa Rica.
Xinis, who is overseeing his deportation case, has accused the administration of misleading the court by falsely suggesting that Costa Rica was unwilling to take him, despite the fact that the country’s offer to provide him “residence and refugee status is, and always has been, firm, unwavering, and unconditional,” according to the judge.
Bovino and other administration officials, meanwhile, have insisted that Abrego Garcia will be removed from the country, whether or not he is ever tried in court for the charges against him.
“It’s too bad that we have these activist judges that legislate from the bench and put MS-13 gang members back out on the streets to harm Americans,” Bovino told Fox News host Jesse Watters December 12. “That’s what we’re doing in these American cities, are taking individuals like this, quote, ‘Maryland dad,’ out of circulation and putting them back where they need to be, and that’s in their country of record.”
Two days later, Bovino told Newsmax: “We have an MS-13 gang member walking the streets. As you said, a wife-beater, but also, let’s not forget, he was also an alien smuggler. So here’s someone that wants immigration relief, he wants to, to leech off the United States, and thinks it’s OK to do that.”
He said Abrego Garcia “needs to be deported now.”
“That’s what you get when you have an extremist judge, or judges, that legislate from the bench,” he added.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have called the statements “flagrant” violations of the court’s gag order, arguing that “sanctions and other case-related relief are warranted.”
His lawyers also said government attorneys did not respond to requests to retract the statements.
Separately, Abrego Garcia is calling on the judge overseeing the criminal case to drop the charges against him altogether, citing vindictive and selective prosecution after being “singled out by the United States government.”
“Rather than fix its mistake and return [him] to the United States, the government fought back at every level of the federal court system,” attorneys wrote in court filings. “And at every level, [he] won. This case results from the government’s concerted effort to punish him for having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice.”
In filings last week, government attorneys argued that, with or without a final order for his removal, they want a judge’s permission to legally detain him — again — so they can deport him a second time.
The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security.
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