Abrego Garcia v. Noem
What’s at stake
In its attempt to shroud its actions in secrecy, the Trump administration has invoked state-secrecy or national-security concerns in many of its ongoing lawsuits. Public Justice is representing Fix the Court as a proposed intervenor in Abrego-Garcia v. Noem to demand that the hearings concerning the administration’s decision-making around ICE’s troubling abductions be held in public view.
Summary
On March 12, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers pulled over Kilmar Abrego Garcia with his five-year-old child in the car. ICE told Mr. Abrego Garcia that his “status has changed” and took him into custody. His wife, Ms. Jennifer Vasquez Sura, was able to pick up their child shortly after. ICE did not provide an explanation for why Mr. Abrego Garcia was being detained, or where he would be held. Over the next few days, Mr. Abrego Garcia was moved to various locations across the country, including Louisiana and Texas. On March 15, 2025, Mr. Abrego Garcia was able to call his wife and informed her that he was being sent to CECOT (“Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo,” or Terrorism Confinement Center) in El Salvador. The following day, news broke that a large group of Venezuelan men had been removed to CECOT. New coverage included videos and photos of the men. Although their faces were not visible, Ms. Vasquez Sura was able to identify Mr. Abrego Garcia among them.
While the circumstances of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s abduction have become well known to the public, the court proceedings are not.
The only way to keep up with the developments in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case is to either attend the proceedings in-person, or to find out days later through news articles or Twitter/Bluesky threads. The Constitution demands more public access than that. The District of Maryland’s local rules expressly prohibit recording proceedings except by order. The court clerk for the District of Maryland has indicated there is no plan for a public access line to be available for hearings. At minimum, the court should have a public access line (which many federal courts offer) that allows 200 people to call-in and listen to proceedings. But realistically, the court has the ability to stream these proceedings with audio and video using the same technology they used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The secrecy surrounding Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case has been extremely troubling and is precisely what has allowed the government to detain and remove him without any recognition of his rights under the law. Public Justice is representing Fix the Court, a nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for greater transparency in our federal courts, as a proposed intervenor in the case. Our motions, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, seek to lift this veil of secrecy by asking the court to make a public access line available for future court hearings and ensure there is notice and an opportunity to respond to any future requests for hearing closure.
Many lawsuits involving serious threats to the public are inaccessible to the public. As part of our mission to hold corporations, the government, and powerful institutions accountable when they harm people, we fight to ensure that our courts are not used to brush evidence of their wrongdoing under the rug. Public Justice’s Anti-Court Secrecy Project, led by the Richard Zitrin Anti-Court Secrecy Senior Attorney Jackie Aranda Osorno, has considerable experience bringing to light information on court cases significant to the public interest. This case presents an opportunity to employ our expertise to respond to the Trump administration’s unprecedented overreach and lawlessness in arresting and detaining people.