Abrego Garcia asks for gag order on Bondi, Noem
Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are asking a federal judge to issue a gag order against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, to bar them from making “baseless public attacks” against the Salvadorian national who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in a Thursday motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that Trump administration officials have targeted their client since he was released from prison, leveling “highly prejudicial, inflammatory and false statements.”
“To safeguard his right to a fair trial, Mr. Abrego respectfully renews his earlier requests that the Court order that all DOJ and DHS officials involved in this case, and all officials in their supervisory chain, including” Bondi and Noem, “refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing this proceeding,” the attorneys said in a 15-page motion to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw.
Noem has accused Abrego Garcia, who entered the U.S. illegally, of being associated with the Salvadorian gang MS-13. His lawyers have denied the accusation.
“He doesn’t belong here. He won’t be staying here. America is a safer nation without this MS-13 Gangbanger in it,” The Department of Homeland Security said of Abrego Garcia in a post on social media Monday.
Abrego Garcia was arrested earlier this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore, days after he was released from custody in a criminal case in Tennessee.
After being deported to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador in March, he was brought back to the U.S. to face human smuggling charges following a traffic stop in 2022.
Following detention by ICE, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys were informed that the Salvadorian national could be deported to Uganda. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said Monday that the administration is “absolutely forbidden” from removing him until a hearing can be held to weigh if the Trump administration will let him challenge the removal to a third-world country.
“If Kilmar Abrego Garcia did not want to be mentioned by the Secretary of Homeland Security, then he should have not entered our country illegally and committed heinous crimes,” a DHS official told The Hill on Friday morning.
“Once again, the media is falling all over themselves to defend this criminal illegal MS-13 gang member who is an alleged human trafficker, domestic abuser, and child predator,” the DHS official continued. “The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal alien has completely fallen apart, yet they continue to peddle his sob story.”
They added, “We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Updated at 11 a.m. EDT.