U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey,  a Maryland Democrat who represents the district where Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife live, led the chant “bring him home” outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt before a hearing in Abrego Garcia’s case last month. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Maryland federal judge overseeing the lawsuit concerning the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia unsealed documents Wednesday that the Trump administration had asked to keep unavailable to the public under the so-called state secrets privilege.

The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis unsealed three documents that she said did not contain any privileged information. Xinis questioned the Trump administration’s broad use of the privilege during a hearing last month.

The request to unseal the documents came from a coalition of news organizations, arguing First Amendment rights and the public’s right to information in a case that has become a flashpoint between the judiciary branch and the Trump administration.

“The Press Movants rightly contend that, at common law, the public enjoys a presumptive right to access court records, overcome only when outweighed by competing interests,” Xinis wrote Wednesday.

President Donald Trump has said Abrego Garcia, who was removed in March due to an “administrative error,” will not return to the U.S. and Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration have argued in court that the Maryland man is in the custody of El Salvador and the federal government has no authority to bring him back.

In a separate case of another wrongly deported immigrant to El Salvador, the Department of Justice submitted a document detailing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was personally working with the Salvadoran government to return a 20-year-old referred to in court documents as only “Cristian,” after another federal judge ordered his return.

Discovery documents

Some of the filings that were unsealed Wednesday had been public until the Trump administration moved to seal them.

One unsealed record related to an April discovery request Abrego Garcia’s attorneys made to the government seeking information about how the administration was facilitating Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must facilitate the Maryland man’s return, but stopped short of requiring it.

Another document related to the Trump administration’s request for more time in discovery proceedings.

“It does not disclose any potentially privileged or otherwise sensitive information for which a compelling government interest outweighs the right to access,” Xinis wrote.

One document was partially redacted, because it “includes some information potentially implicated by the state secrets privilege,” Xinis wrote.

The document, signed by Abrego Garcia attorney Jonathan G. Cooper, objected to the Trump administration’s attempt to pause discovery. The government had argued that complying with discovery in the lawsuit would hinder efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

“As we explained to the government, in our meet-and-confer, we do not understand why the production of documents or interrogatory responses — none of which has occurred in the public eye — has any bearing on efforts to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release and return,” Cooper wrote in the partially redacted document unsealed Wednesday.

A fourth document, a transcript from a late April hearing, will be released but redacted until the high-profile case is settled, Xinis wrote.

“Although the Court does not wholly agree with the Defendants’ overbroad characterizations of the government interests at stake, the Court does recognize that certain information touches upon Defendants’ asserted state secrets privilege as applied to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department,” she wrote about the partially redacted transcript.