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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant erroneously deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador, was beaten and psychologically tortured while detained in the country, according to court filings – one of many disclosures revealed just days before a major hearing in Maryland.
The status hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, is all but certain to reignite a closely watched legal fight over Abrego Garcia and his legal status in the U.S., which is currently playing out separately in two federal courts.
In a new court filing submitted to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers outlined a long list of abuses their client was subjected to at the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a notorious anti-terrorism prison in El Salvador, including sleep deprivation, psychological torture and severe beatings.
These abuses allegedly began the moment the migrants arrived at the prison in March. There, they were greeted by a prison guard who said, “Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here, doesn’t leave.”
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According to court documents, Abrego Garcia was immediately frog-marched to his cell by prison guards, who kicked him with boots and struck him with wooden batons along the way, leaving visible bumps and bruises across his body.
He and other detainees in the cell slept on metal mattresses, with minimal access to food and satiation. They were also forced to kneel for approximately nine hours, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., “with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion.”
Abrego Garcia’s physical condition deteriorated quickly – within two weeks, his lawyers said, he lost roughly 31 pounds.
He was also psychologically tortured and received threats of violence during his time at CECOT, according to the filing, where prison guards repeatedly told him they would transfer him to other prison cells housing violent gang members, whom they assured him would “tear” him apart.
In fact, the filing said, Abrego Garcia “repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells” violently harm one another “with no intervention from guards or personnel.”
“Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards or personnel,” they said.
The filing, in part, appears to undercut administration officials’ repeated assertions that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang – noting that prison officials at CECOT “explicitly acknowledged” his tattoos “were not gang-related,” and told him, “your tattoos are fine.”
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The eye-popping conditions at CECOT described in the filing are among several issues expected to come to a head Monday, when Judge Xinis holds a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.
There, she will consider a flurry of recent motions from both the Trump administration and Abrego Garcia’s legal team – including a government motion to dismiss the case as moot, and a request from plaintiffs to sanction officials for allegedly failing to facilitate his return to the U.S.
His lawyers claim the case is not moot, because Xinis can still order his return to Maryland. They asked this week that she order him back to the district from Tennessee, where he was sent upon his return to the U.S. to face criminal charges. They also requested that Xinis block Abrego Garcia’s possible removal from the U.S. without prior notification, pointing to statements from the Trump administration.
“Defendants have repeatedly stated their intent to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia to a third country,” his lawyers said in a Wednesday filing, adding that he could face “persecution or torture if removed directly to various other countries,” including Libya, South Sudan and Eritrea, which are notorious for human rights abuses.
Adding to the complexity of the matter is the separate criminal case playing out in Tennessee.
The federal judge overseeing that case on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to comply with rules prohibiting Justice Department and DHS officials from making any public statements about Abrego Garcia that could potentially prejudice a jury or impact the integrity of the court proceedings.
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Lawyers for Abrego Garcia told the judge there in a separate filing Wednesday night that the Trump administration has, for months, made “extensive and inflammatory extrajudicial comments about [Abrego] that are likely to prejudice his right to a fair trial,” including “relentlessly” attacking his character and reputation – claiming he is a “gang member, human trafficker, and serial domestic abuser,” and referring to him as a criminal on three dozen occasions after his indictment, despite the fact he has not yet had a trial.
They noted that U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, the judge overseeing the criminal case, previously ordered his release pending trial, citing a lack of evidence and “double hearsay” presented by the government in his June arraignment.
“Thus far, the government’s unabated public disparagement of Mr. Abrego has far outpaced its ability to muster actual evidence, notwithstanding its extraordinary efforts to conjure up such evidence,” they said.
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The next steps here remain deeply uncertain, given the complexity of the cases, and the dual nature of the civil and criminal cases.
Xinis has previously signaled frustration and impatience with the Trump administration for slow-walking certain requests, or failing to comply with discovery requests from the court.
She chastised Justice Department lawyers on more than one occasion for what she described as their “vague, evasive and incomplete” responses, which she suggested demonstrate “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”
The two parties will appear in court on Monday at 11 a.m.
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