The Trump administration on Tuesday said it plans to seek the dismissal of a civil case ordering the government to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the U.S., arguing in a new court filing that the case is now “moot,” given that he is now back in U.S. custody.
In the filing, lawyers for the Trump administration told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that they plan to submit an official motion to dismiss the case on “mootness grounds” by June 16.
Justice Department officials said they have “done exactly what plaintiffs asked for and what this court ordered them to do” – that is, to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from El Salvador, where he was deported in March in what Trump officials acknowledged was an administrative error.
But the filing is likely to do little to quell the mounting legal fight surrounding Abrego Garcia’s detention and efforts to secure his return from Salvadorian custody.
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Upon being returned to the U.S., Abrego Garcia was immediately sent to Tennessee to face federal charges related to transporting undocumented immigrants in the U.S., stemming from a traffic stop years earlier.
Court documents show the Justice Department filed the charges against Abrego Garcia on May 21 – prompting a flurry of fresh questions as to when the investigation and impaneling of a grand jury would have taken place.
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia described the timing of his return from Salvadorian custody as “pure farce” and told Xinis in a filing of their own late last week that they plan to file a sanctions motion against the government by Wednesday.
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They noted that lawyers for the Trump administration were continuing to tell the court, even six days after he was indicted, that they did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
They also noted that, in their view, a contempt charge and sanctions against the government were warranted and that the Maryland court still has jurisdiction over the civil case.
Xinis, for her part, suggested last month that the Trump administration could be held in contempt for refusing to comply with the court – describing the government’s lack of candor in the discovery proceedings as beating a “frustrated and dead horse.”
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Trump administration lawyers sought to dispel the notion that they intentionally flouted the court on Tuesday, describing plaintiffs’ characterization of their actions as “desperate and disappointing.”
“To be sure, the parties have had pointed disagreements on discovery issues, including because defendants could not share state secrets and other protected materials that would have demonstrated their good-faith compliance with the court’s orders,” the administration said Tuesday.
“But the proof is in the pudding – defendants have returned Abrego Garcia to the United States just as they were ordered to do.”
Xinis, an Obama appointee, previously criticized the administration for failing to comply with her court’s requests for information in the case, and she accused officials in a blistering eight-page order of submitting “vague, evasive and incomplete” responses that she said demonstrated “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”
