Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., right, meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador by the U.S. government. (Photo courtesy Van Hollen's office)

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the wrongly deported Maryland man who has now been returned to the United States, are pushing to keep his civil case open in pursuit of sanctions against the Trump administration for refusing to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.

“Until the Government is held accountable for its blatant, willful, and persistent violations of court orders at excruciating cost to Abrego Garcia and his family, this case is not over,” according to the brief by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed Sunday.

“The executive branch’s wanton disregard for the judicial branch has left a stain on the Constitution,” they wrote. “If there is to be any hope of removing that stain, it must start by shining a light on the improper actions of the Government in this tragic affair and imposing meaningful remedies.”

The Trump administration on Friday moved to dismiss the civil suit filed in federal district court in Maryland, arguing it is moot after Abrego Garica landed in the U.S. to face criminal charges for “alien smuggling.”

A May 21 two-count Tennessee grand jury indictment, unsealed Friday, accused Abrego Garcia of conspiracy to unlawfully transport undocumented people for profit and the unlawful transportation of undocumented people between 2016 and 2025. The indictment also accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang.

His attorneys have disputed those charges.

Department of Justice lawyers also moved to deny Abrego Garcia bond, on the grounds that he is a flight risk and poses a danger to the community.

If convicted, Abrego Garcia could face up to 10 years in prison for each undocumented person transported.

“Accordingly, the sentencing exposure for the defendant – given the number of undocumented aliens involved – goes well beyond the remainder of the defendant’s life,” Robert E. McGuire, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, wrote.

Deported to CECOT

The civil suit was brought by Abrego Garcia’s family after he was arrested by immigration officials in March and swiftly put on a deportation plane to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, despite having protections against removal to his home country since 2019.

Abrego Garcia’s arrest in March was not due to any criminal charges, but he was informed his immigration status had changed. The Trump administration has admitted his initial deportation to the brutal CECOT prison was an “administrative error,” but has maintained Abrego Garcia was in the custody of El Salvador and could not be brought back.

Trump officials, including President Donald Trump, repeatedly said that Abrego Garica would not return to the U.S. and the president seemed upset with the news of his return on Friday.

“He should have never had to be returned,” Trump said in a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One Friday night. “It’s a disaster.”

On Friday, Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked El Salvador President Nayib Bukele after the Trump administration presented an arrest warrant for Abrego Garcia.

‘Determined stalling campaign’

The Trump administration argued that because Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. on Friday, the civil case is moot.

But his attorneys argue that Abrego Garcia was not brought back to Maryland due to court orders – even as high as the Supreme Court – but “rather to Tennessee so that he could be charged with a crime in a case that the Government only developed while it was under threat of sanctions.”

“Two things are now crystal clear. First, the Government has always had the ability to return Abrego Garcia, but it has simply refused to do so,” according to the brief. “Second, the Government has conducted a determined stalling campaign to stave off contempt sanctions long enough to concoct a politically face-saving exit from its own predicament.”

Maryland District Court Judge Paula Xinis, who has handled the high-profile case since March, has granted Abrego Garcia’s attorneys until Wednesday to file their request for sanctions against the Trump administration.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said they want to push forward with discovery documents because they “are finally on the verge of securing answers from knowledgeable officials about what the Government actually did or did not do to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.”

Abrego Garcia will be arraigned before a federal court in Nashville on Friday.

A protester holds a photo of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations on April 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador three months ago, was brought back to the U.S. on Friday and will face federal charges, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Abrego Garcia’s case had become a flashpoint in a debate over what due process rights protect immigrants from deportation after federal officials conceded he was sent to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison because of an administrative error. 

Still, President Donald Trump, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Bondi and other administration officials said for months Abrego Garcia could not be released because of criminal conduct they had not publicly produced evidence of.

In a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One Friday night, Trump declined to say whether it was his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., according to White House pool reports.

“He should have never had to be returned,” Trump said. “It’s a disaster.”

Bondi said Friday a federal warrant for Abrego Garcia’s arrest on human trafficking charges compelled his release from the Salvadoran prison system.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said at a Department of Justice news conference Friday afternoon. “He was a smuggler of humans and women and children.”

The 10-page indictment filed in the Middle District of Tennessee comes after a federal grand jury indicted him on May 21 for allegedly transporting migrants in the U.S. without legal authorization within the country.

Chris Newman, an attorney representing the Abrego Garcia family said at a virtual press event Friday that he remained skeptical of the federal charges lodged at Abrego Garcia.

“I can tell you that we should all treat whatever charges that are being leveled against him with a high degree of suspicion,” Newman said. “We should make sure that he gets a fair (trial) in court because he’s clearly not getting a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.”

Bondi did not detail when the investigation into Abrego Garcia began, but said the federal indictment charges contained “recently found facts.”

“This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” Bondi said.

WKRN in Nashville said Abrego Garcia’s arraignment has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday. 

Outcry over due process

Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation to the notorious mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, drew national outcry as the Trump administration clashed with a federal court that ordered the return of the Beltsville man and resisted the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” his return.

Despite the orders, Trump administration officials did not appear to take any public steps to secure Abrego Garcia’s release, and at times seemed to relish their defiance of the courts.

Bondi thanked El Salvador’s government Friday for releasing Abrego Garcia in compliance with the warrant.

The Trump administration has argued in federal court in Maryland for months that Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador and therefore cannot be returned, despite a $15 million agreement between the U.S. and the Salvadoran government to keep roughly 300 men removed from the U.S. and detained at CECOT. Abrego Garcia had been moved to a different El Salvador prison prior to his release.

Abrego Gacia had deportation protections to his home country of El Salvador since 2019.

He was pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in March and informed that his immigration status had changed. He was later placed on one of three deportation flights on March 15 to CECOT.

The Trump administration admitted his removal was an “administrative error” but has since alleged that Abrego Garcia was a leader in the MS-13 gang without producing evidence in the federal civil court overseeing the suit challenging his removal.

Maryland U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to press for Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the U.S., welcomed the news as a victory for due process rights.

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. “The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

William J. Ford contributed to this report.

Participants walk through the Broadway Townhouses in Camden, N.J., as part of a training program to help neighborhoods affected by violence. The Community-Based Public Safety Collective, which offered the training, is one of at least 554 organizations affected by the U.S. Department of Justice’s abrupt termination in April of at least 373 public safety grants. (Photo courtesy of Aqeela Sherrills)

Community-based violence intervention programs nationwide have long worked alongside law enforcement officers to deescalate conflict, prevent retaliatory shootings and, in some cases, arrive at crime scenes before police do.

In many communities, these initiatives have been credited with saving lives and reducing violence.

But the Trump administration last month abruptly terminated at least 373 public safety grants from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, pulling roughly $500 million in remaining funds across a range of programs, according to a new report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit think tank. The cuts come just as summer is approaching — a season when violence consistently peaks.

The grants were initially valued at $820 million, but many were multiyear awards at different stages of rollout, which means some of the money has already been spent.

At least 554 organizations across 48 states are affected by the cuts, many of them small, community-based nonprofits that rely on this money. The rescinded grants supported everything from violence prevention and policing to victim advocacy, reentry services, research, and mental health and substance use treatment. Some of the grants also were cut from state and local government agencies.

Another new report from the Council on Criminal Justice dug deeper into local effects: It found that the Trump administration’s cuts also eliminated 473 minigrants — known as “subawards” — passed from primary recipients to smaller groups that often face challenges accessing federal dollars directly, such as rural government agencies and grassroots nonprofits.

About $5 million of those subawards was intended for state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies working to reduce violence in rural areas, according to the report.

Experts warn the timing couldn’t be worse. The summer months — historically linked to higher rates of violent crimes — are approaching, and the safety net in many cities is fraying. A growing body of research has found a correlation between spikes in temperature and violent crime, with studies suggesting that heat waves and sudden weather swings can inflame tensions and increase aggression.

“These programs are having to cut staff and cut services, and that will be felt in communities in states all over the country at exactly the time when they’re most needed,” said Amy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice and the lead author of the report.

Solomon also previously served as assistant U.S. attorney general in the Biden administration, where she led the Office of Justice Programs — the Justice Department’s largest grantmaking agency.

Many of the primary grants that were terminated contained no references to race, gender or diversity-related language, according to the report — despite claims from federal officials that such criteria were driving the cuts. Primary grant recipients received their funding from the feds directly.

‘Wasteful grants’

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the cuts in a late April post on X, stating that the department has cut “millions of dollars in wasteful grants.” She also signaled that additional cuts may be on the way. In her post, she specifically cited grants that supported LGBTQ+ liaison services in police departments and programs providing gender-affirming care and housing for incarcerated transgender people.

The Department of Justice’s cuts come amid a broader push by the Trump administration and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency to pull funding from a range of federal programs — a move they say is aimed at reducing spending and saving taxpayer dollars.

For some groups, the sudden withdrawal of funds has meant scaling back crime victim services or pulling out of some neighborhoods altogether.

Community violence prevention groups aim to stop shootings and other forms of violence before they happen by working directly with those most at risk. Staff — often with experience in the justice system — mediate conflicts, respond to crises, and connect people to support such as counseling or job training. In some cities, they’re dispatched to high-risk areas to deescalate tensions, often before police arrive.

And research shows that community-level violence prevention programs can contribute to drops in crime.

After a historic surge in homicides in 2020, violent crime in the United States dropped in 2024 to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower — in many cities. Preliminary 2025 data suggests that the downward trend is continuing in major cities, including Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

But the progress hasn’t reached every community. Some neighborhoods are still grappling with high rates of gun violence and car theft.

Organizations that faced the toughest financial cuts had been funded through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative — the federal government’s primary mechanism for supporting this work.

Since the program’s launch in 2022, the federal Office of Justice Programs has invested about $300 million in community violence intervention efforts and related research. But nearly half of that funding has now been wiped out, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report.

“It’s really unprecedented to see these kinds of grants cut midstream,” Solomon told Stateline. “This was an effort that had bipartisan support [in Congress] and in the field all across the country.”

Impact on communities nationwide

In late April, Aqeela Sherrills received a letter from the federal Justice Department terminating a $3.5 million grant that supported the Community-Based Public Safety Collective. Sherrills is the co-founder and executive director of the national organization, which focuses on community-led approaches to preventing violence, including mediating conflicts, building relationships in high-risk neighborhoods and connecting people to resources such as housing, mental health care and job training.

The letter said the organization’s efforts no longer aligned with the federal Justice Department’s priorities, which include supporting “certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.”

Until the end of April, the collective had an agreement with the Justice Department to provide training and technical assistance to 95 local groups — including community groups, police departments, city and county governments, and state agencies — that had each been awarded $2 million over three years to run community violence intervention programs.

But after the department cut $3.5 million, the Community-Based Public Safety Collective was forced to lay off 20 staff members.

“Without the significant funding … it destabilizes the organizations. People’s ability to be able to provide for themselves and their family is at risk,” Sherrills said in an interview. “We’re bracing for what could potentially be a high-violence summer.”

The deepest funding cuts hit states led by both Republican and Democratic governors, including California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington.

About $145 million in violence intervention funding was rescinded overall, along with an additional $8.6 million for related research and evaluation efforts, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report.

Some of the canceled grants funded studies and research on forensics, policing, corrections issues and behavioral health. Now, those projects may be left unfinished.

Some of the largest losses hit intermediary organizations, such as the Community-Based Public Safety Collective, that support smaller programs by providing microgrants, training and technical assistance.

For organizations such as the Newark Community Street Team in New Jersey, the loss of federal funding has left some areas of the city without coverage.

The funding had allowed staff to monitor neighborhoods and engage directly with community members to prevent violence. That included weekly community walks, where team members connected with victims of crime and people who may have witnessed violence, linking them to resources such as counseling or legal aid. The team also operates a hotline where residents can report crimes or alert staff to tensions that might escalate — allowing the team to step in before violence occurred.

Some of the lost funding also supported school-based initiatives, where mediators helped students resolve conflicts before they escalated into fights or other forms of violence.

Of the 15 Newark positions affected by the cuts, four employees were reassigned to other departments; the others were let go. Some of the team’s staff members are formerly incarcerated, a vital trait that helps them connect with residents and build trust in communities that are often wary of traditional law enforcement.

“We just have to continue working and serving our community the best we can,” said Rey Chavis, the executive director of the street team.

That work appears to be contributing to a decrease in the community’s crime rates.

City crime data from Jan. 1 to April 30, 2025, shows a significant drop in violent crime in Newark compared with the same period in 2024. The total number of violent crimes reported to police fell by 49%, driven largely by a 68% decrease in robberies, according to Stateline’s analysis of the data. Homicides dropped by 53%, while aggravated assaults declined by 43%. Rapes dropped slightly by 3%.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.