Aug. 20 (UPI) — Defense attorneys for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration wrongly deported to El Salvador this spring and then brought human trafficking charges against him once he returned to the United States, are accusing the Justice Department of vindictively prosecuting their client.

In a motion filed Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s defense is asking the court to dismiss the charges brought against the 30-year-old Salvadoran national is punishment for him standing up to the Trump administration.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government. It is obvious why. And it is not because of the seriousness of his alleged conduct. Nor is it because he poses some unique threat to this country. Instead, Mr. Abrego was charged because he refused to acquiesce in the government’s violation of his due process rights,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in the motion.

Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration as part of its mass deportation plans. Despite a court order prohibiting his removal, he was deported to El Salvador in March and incarcerated in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where he said he was subjected to torture.

Abrego Garcia then challenged his removal in court, prompting the Trump administration to try and label him a gang member in public, while admitting in court it wrongly deported the immigrant.

He was returned to the United States in June, but only after he was charged with human smuggling by the Justice Department.

In the filing, his lawyers accused the Trump administration of conducting “a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation that led to the charges in this case.”

His lawyers point to comments from senior Trump administration officials, as well as President Donald Trump, calling him a criminal following his win in court that secured his return to the United States but before he was charged as proof of the White House’s vindictiveness.

“The government’s motive has been to paint Mr. Abrego as a criminal in order to punish him for challenging his removal, to avoid the embarrassment of accepting responsibility for its unlawful conduct and to shift public opinion around Mr. Abrego’s removal, including ‘mounting concerns’ with the government’s compliance with court orders,” they said in the filing.

The Justice Department’s case against Abrego Garcia stems from a November 2022 traffic stop in Putnam County, Tenn. Nine passengers were in the vehicle with him when stopped, but he was allowed to continue on his way, not even receiving a traffic ticket.

The government alleges he was the driver in a human smuggling conspiracy, and his defense argues that the Trump administration “has gone to extreme lengths” to make its criminal case.

His lawyers in the filing state that they have tried to secure the cooperation of multiple alleged conspirators who have already been sentenced to testify against Abrego Garcia, with its so-called star witness being a convicted leader of a human smuggling business with three felony convictions and who has been deported from the United States five times.

According to the filing, the Justice Department arranged for this alleged co-conspirator to be released early from a 30-month sentence to a halfway house to cooperate against Abrego Garcia, while relatives or those in relationship with this person also appear to be provided with “similar benefits” for providing corroborating testimony.

In the filing Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue that nothing had changed in the three years since the traffic stop, except for the government wrongly deporting him to El Salvador and that he challenged his deportation.

“As a matter of timing, it is clear that it was that lawsuit — and its effects on the government — that prompted the government to re-evaluate the 2022 traffic stop and bring this case,” the filing states.

“[N]o similarly situated defendant — an alleged driver in an alien smuggling conspiracy — has ever had to wait two and a half years to be charged with a crime where the facts had not changed since the stop itself.”

His defense alleges that the only explanation for the timing of the charges is that the government has chosen to punish him for fighting his deportation.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.