Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have asked a federal judge to punish Trump administration figures for defying the court’s orders for weeks by refusing to bring the deported man back even as they were secretly working to charge him with crimes.

The lawyers suggested everything from finding the government in civil contempt and fining lawyers to appointing a special investigator to dig through government files and find people to pin the blame on for weeks of stonewalling.

That includes the refusal to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, held in a Salvadoran prison even after the Supreme Court ordered the government “facilitate” his return. And it includes ducking legal “discovery” inquiries aimed at getting to the bottom of what happened, Jonathan Cooper, the lead lawyer, told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

“The government’s defiance has not been subtle. It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant. The defendants’ defiance of judicial orders has been accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this court’s authority,” he said.

Mr. Abrego Garcia is now back in the U.S. as of late last week, extradited from El Salvador on a criminal warrant. He is facing a migrant smuggling case in Tennessee.

His lawyers in that case have asked a judge to grant him pretrial release.

SEE ALSO: Now back in the U.S., Abrego Garcia demands judge release him from jail

His return came after weeks of the Trump administration insisting he would never set foot in the U.S. again, despite Judge Xinis’ demand that he be brought back.

Government lawyers had argued that Judge Xinis was trampling on tricky foreign policy matters with her prodding.

The judge has repeatedly found the government to be dragging its feet on her orders.

Mr. Abrego Garcia quickly became the face of the battle over President Trump’s immigration policy after he was deported on March 15 as part of three planeloads of migrants sent to El Salvador. Most of those were Venezuelans deported under the Alien Enemies Act, though several dozen were Salvadorans accused of being MS-13 members — including Mr. Abrego Garcia.

He has insisted he did not belong to the gang.

The government initially admitted he was wrongly deported to El Salvador, the one country where an immigration judge had ruled he could not be sent back for fear of persecution or torture.

Later, however, government officials said that earlier ruling was voided because MS-13 has now been declared a terrorist organization, which supersedes the persecution defense against deportation.

Judge Xinis has declared both the arrest and deportation to be unlawful.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.