Lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully expelled to El Salvador in March, accused the Justice Department on Tuesday of vindictive prosecution for bringing a criminal case against him after he and his lawyers fought his deportation.
The accusations, made in a 35-page filing in Federal District Court in Nashville, amounted to an effort by Mr. Abrego Garcia to call out the behavior of the administration, which has been going after him in one form or another for nearly five months.
In a reminder of the government’s many missteps in the case, Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers pointed out that Trump officials first removed him from the United States in violation of a court order. They added that instead of taking the traditional path and quickly returning him, the White House “began a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation” that led to his indictment.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government,” the lawyers wrote. “It is obvious why. And it is not because of the seriousness of his alleged conduct. Nor is it because he poses some unique threat to this country. Instead, Mr. Abrego was charged because he refused to acquiesce in the government’s violation of his due process rights.”
The sharp-edged filing was the second time that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have sought to hold the Trump administration’s feet to the fire for how it has handled his expulsion to El Salvador and its aftermath. In mid-June, the lawyers asked Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing a civil case in Maryland arising from his deportation, to sanction the administration for its “sustained and flagrant” violations of her orders.
The filing in Tennessee came as Mr. Abrego Garcia’s intertwined civil and criminal cases neared a significant inflection point. He is likely to be freed from criminal custody on Friday after a federal judge in Nashville put his original release order on hold for a month. And that will force the government to decide whether it intends to push forward with his prosecution or turn him over to immigration officials to begin the process of deporting him again.