Federal judge delivers one-two punch to Trump in Abrego Garcia case

A federal judge granted a request Wednesday from more than a dozen major news outlets and publishers to unseal certain records in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March in what administration officials have acknowledged was an administrative error.

Separately on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis granted a request from Abrego Garcia’s legal team to file a motion for sanctions against the Trump administration. That filing is due June 11, she said in an order. 

The one-two punch from Xinis could give plaintiffs new ammo to pursue more formal punishments against the Trump administration if officials are found to have been acting in bad faith or knowingly defying court orders. 

It will also give new access to media outlets covering the case. Xinis agreed to grant in part a request from a group of 14 major media outlets and publishers – including Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, New York Times, the Washington Post and NPR – who filed a motion to unseal records in the Abrego Garcia case, citing concerns over the lack of public access, as well as over government efforts, or lack thereof, to facilitate his return to the U.S.

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In her order, Xinis agreed with the contention of the news outlets – referred to jointly as the “Press Movants” – that the public “enjoys a presumptive right to access court records, overcome only when outweighed by competing interests.”

As such, Xinis ordered the Trump administration to unseal a handful of documents that have so far been filed under seal, as part of a protracted legal battle over the status of Abrego Garcia.

Xinis also ordered them to unseal a transcript from an April 30 hearing in his case. 

“The right to public access of court records remains critical to promoting ‘trustworthiness of the judicial process, to curb judicial abuses, and to provide the public with a more complete understanding of the judicial system, including a better perception of fairness,’” she said Wednesday.

The order comes amid a months-long court fight over the status of Abrego Garcia, who remains in El Salvador. 

Xinis in April ordered the Trump administration to comply with an expedited discovery schedule to determine whether they were complying with the directive to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., which was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

Since then, she has struggled to ascertain the status of Abrego Garcia, or efforts made to return him to the U.S.

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Trump officials, for their part, have repeatedly alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though any formal ties remain unproven. 

Lawyers for the government and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have sparred with Xinis in court over what exactly it means to “facilitate” his return – a months-long fight that Xinis most recently described as beating a “frustrated and dead horse.”

Xinis previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered last month, describing the government submissions as “vague, evasive and incomplete” responses, and which she said demonstrated “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”

The order is the latest development in the ongoing feud between Trump officials and the courts over the use of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law used earlier this year to quickly deport migrants from the U.S. 

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To date, the Trump administration has not knowingly complied with any court orders to return migrants who were removed and sent to El Salvador in the early wave of deportation flights, despite earlier court orders from Xinis, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and others.

It is unclear whether Xinis plans to begin contempt proceedings against the administration, though the federal judge in D.C. said earlier this year that he had found probable cause to do so.