Live: Kilmar Abrego Garcia charged with human smuggling after return from El Salvador
Live: Kilmar Abrego Garcia charged with human smuggling after return from El Salvador
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia neighborhood in El Salvador
USA TODAY visited Kilmar Abrego Garcia's home neighborhood in El Salvador to get a better sense of who the man is.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose deportation to an infamous prison in El Salvador made his story a flashpoint in President Donald Trump's immigration policy, faces human trafficking charges after hewas returned to the United States, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Abrego Garcia made more than 100 trips to move illegal immigrants across the United States, Bondi said.
"Thousands of illegal aliens were smuggled," she said.
Abrego Garcia "traded the innocence of minor children for profit," Bondi said.
Abrego Garcia was indicted on two charges of unlawful transport of undocumented immigrants for financial gain.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia also transported narcotics on more than 100 trips between Texas and Maryland. He also smuggled minors, court documents allege.
'Abrego Garcia… transported undocumented aliens in an unsafe manner, including using reconfigured vehicles with after-market unattached seating rows, and they transported children on the floorboards of vehicles in order to maximize profits,' the indictment alleges.
-Nick Penzenstadler
Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador's CECOT mega prison on March 15 in a move officials would later call an administrative "error." A 2019 court order barred his deportation to his native country due to security concerns.
Abrego Garcia will face federal human trafficking charges after a two-count indictment was filled in Tennessee in May.
"We should treat any of these charges with a high degree of suspicion and he should get a fair hearing in court because he isn't getting one in the court of public opinion,' said Chris Newman, Legal Director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents Abrego Garcia's family.
Newman and Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Maryland, recently attempted to meet with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and were denied access. Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, met with Abrego Garcia briefly in El Salvador.
"For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution," Van Hollen said in statement issued June 6. "Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States. As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.'
What does Abrego Garcia's indictment say?
A federal grand jury handed down the indictment on May 21 in Nashville, according to court records. The indictment was sealed until government lawyers filed to open it on Friday, June 6.
"From in or around 2016 through in or around 2025, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garica and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere," the indictment reads. "Ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas."
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia is a member and associate of the MS-13 gang, a claim his family has denied.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia also transported firearms illegally purchased in Texas for distribution and resale in Maryland. It alleges Abrego Garcia would take undocumented immigrants' cell phones while being transported to ensure they would not contact anyone during the trip.
If convicted, Abrego Garcia would face 10 years in U.S. prison and a $250,000 fine.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tennessee judge denies motion to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained
A Tennessee federal magistrate judge ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Sunday, denying the government's motion to keep him detained. But the Beltsville resident might not go free either. El Salvador native Abrego Garcia was the subject of national outcry after he was arrested and sent to a notorious prison in that country in what the Trump administration previously called an 'administrative error.' A U.S. court had ordered that Abrego Garcia could not be deported there due to the risk of persecution. After being presented with a warrant for his arrest in Tennessee, Abrego Garcia was flown back to the United States. He now faces federal criminal charges in the Middle District of Tennessee. The prosecution charged him with two counts related to smuggling immigrants, citing a traffic stop in 2022, when he was driving an SUV with six passengers. He said they had been doing construction work in St. Louis. Abrego Garcia was not detained or charged. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes wrote in a 51-page memorandum opinion that the government did not meet its burden to show Abrego Garcia 'poses an irremediable danger to the community or is likely not to appear.' She said the court could impose conditions to reasonably assuage public safety concerns and ensure Abrego Garcia's future appearance in court. However, it is possible that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could detain him after his release from police custody. Abrego Garcia's legal team could not be immediately reached for comment Sunday night. The government, in a filing signed by acting United States Attorney Robert McGuire, motioned to put a hold on Holmes' order and intends to move to revoke the order entirely, it wrote in a court filing Sunday. McGuire, along with three officials from a joint law enforcement task force focused on MS-13, wrote that Abrego Garcia faces possible deportation should the judge's order remain in effect. 'Either Abrego will remain in the custody of the Attorney General or her designee pending trial if detained under the Bail Reform Act or he will likely remain in [ICE] … custody subject to anticipated removal proceedings that are outside the jurisdiction of this Court. That suggests the Court's determination of the detention issues is little more than an academic exercise,' Holmes wrote. Regardless of that 'academic exercise,' Holmes wrote that Abrego Garcia deserved to have 'a full and fair determination of whether he must remain in federal custody pending trial' as part of his due process rights. In looking at Abrego Garcia's personal history and characteristics, Holmes found that Abrego Garcia had strong ties to his Maryland community, no reported criminal history and 'no demonstrated history of physical, substance abuse, or mental health issues.' The Sheet, Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union said it would allow Abrego Garcia's sheet metal apprenticeship to continue and to help him find work. Holmes said the government relied heavily on protective orders obtained by Abrego Garcia's wife as evidence. While the judge agreed the circumstances behind those orders were serious, she said there was no evidence of similar conduct in the past four years. She said the court could require continued family, mental health or anger management counseling as a condition of release. The government alleged greater offenses than it's actually charging. Prosecutors claim in a court filing that Abrego Garcia was also involved with drug trafficking, transporting illegal firearms and abusing female immigrants. Last week, the prosecution filed a motion to have Abrego Garcia remain in custody until his trial, describing him as a potential flight risk. His lawyers filed an opposing measure on Thursday requesting that the court deny the motion. Abrego Garcia's next hearing is Wednesday afternoon. Baltimore Sun reporter Ben Mause contributed to this article. Have a news tip? Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@ 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Federal judge denies detention for alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia
A federal judge in Tennessee has denied the government's request to hold Kilmar Abrego Garcia in continued detention while his criminal case proceeds. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadorian migrant who was erroneously deported to El Salvador before being returned to the U.S. to face federal prosecution on charges of trafficking undocumented migrants and conspiring with others to do so. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes denied the government's request to hold Abrego Garcia, though he will remain in custody until at least a hearing that has been scheduled to determine conditions of release, which the government can, and will likely, appeal. Abrego Garcia appeared at his arraignment and hearing on the government's detention on June 13. According to the judge's decision on Sunday, "the sole circumstance about which the government and Abrego [Garcia] may agree in this case is the likelihood that Abrego [Garcia] will remain in custody regardless of the outcome of the issues raised in the government's motion for detention." Holmes said in her decision that the court found no detention hearing is authorized under the Bail Reform Act because the government failed to prove the case involved a minor and that Abrego Garcia is considered a flight risk. Additionally, the court found that after considering several factors, the government failed to prove that Abrego Garcia poses an irremediable danger to the community. Still, even if Abrego Garcia is to be released, ICE will arrest and detain him immediately via civil immigration process, separately from the criminal case. The criminal case against Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 member, comes after a high-profile, protracted legal fight over his deportation and the Trump administration's efforts to delay his return to the U.S., even after the Supreme Court ordered the administration to "facilitate" his release earlier this year. The indictment alleges that Abrego Garica was part of a smuggling ring that helped bring immigrants to the U.S. illegally and smuggle them across the country. According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia and his co-conspirators made at least 100 trips between Texas and Maryland between 2016 and 2025, when he was deported. Special Agent Peter T. Joseph told prosecutors on June 13 that he was first assigned to Abrego Garcia's case in April 2025, when he was still detained in El Salvador. Since then, Joseph said, he has reviewed footage from Abrego Garcia's 2022 traffic stop, which has emerged as the basis of the human smuggling charges. At the time, Joseph told prosecutors, Abrego Garcia had been driving a vehicle with nine passengers and was pulled over while driving from St. Louis to Maryland with an expired license. Six of the nine passengers in the vehicle have since been identified as being in the U.S. illegally, Joseph said, adding that one passenger in the van told officers that he was born in 2007, which would have made him just 15 at the time. Abrego Garcia's legal team has vehemently disputed his alleged status as an MS-13 member. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges. His case has become a national flashpoint in the broader fight over Trump's hard-line immigration policies in his second White House term.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Judge says Justice Department failed to make case for Abrego Garcia's detention ahead of criminal trial
A judge in Tennessee said the Justice Department hasn't made a convincing case that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be kept in pretrial detention, though the mistakenly deported man who was returned to the US is likely to remain in federal immigration custody regardless. Abrego Garcia is being held in Tennessee as he faces a federal indictment of smuggling undocumented immigrants across state lines in 2022. The US returned him from El Salvador this month after the indictment was unsealed, ending a political standoff over his due process rights. His court proceedings have become a vessel for the Trump Justice Department's hardball approach to immigration enforcement in which it has sought to portray Abrego Garcia as part of a gang operation in Maryland. But as she ruled in Abrego Garcia's favor, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes of the federal court in Nashville said Sunday that 'the government failed to prove' so far that he endangered any minor victim, might try to flee from the law or might attempt to obstruct justice, as the Justice Department had argued. She noted that under federal criminal law, the Justice Department hadn't even shown it had enough evidence to hold a hearing seeking his pretrial detention. Still, Abrego Garcia is likely to remain in federal custody, because immigration authorities will be able to keep him detained separate from his criminal case. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Holmes' opinion is still a notable one, building upon six hours of evidence and testimony regarding Abrego Garcia's detention earlier this month, in what amounted to a preview of what may be evidence used at a trial. Holmes' 51-page ruling essentially deems some DOJ accusations about Abrego Garcia to be overblown — built upon evidence with questionable reliability from a traffic stop, cooperators in the case providing information to law enforcement through hearsay, and a shaky theory of victimizing children in a human-smuggling operation when that has not been charged or proved by the DOJ, the judge wrote. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the prosecutor in the case, Robert McGuire, had emphasized how smuggling operations could be dangerous affairs. The danger, the Justice Department argued, stretched from putting adults and children at risk while traveling in packed vehicles, potentially without seat belts, to how the transport of migrants could connect to gang membership in the US. 'There is no dispute the offenses of which Abrego is charged are not crimes against children and the involvement of a minor child is not an element of the charged offenses,' Holmes wrote Sunday. And, she wrote, 'the government cannot simply rely on the general reputation of a particular street gang' to argue Abrego Garcia may be dangerous if he has ties to the group MS-13, as the Justice Department had argued, citing the beliefs of cooperators facing their own charges and deportations. The Justice Department has already appealed the magistrate judge's decision. A senior DOJ official, speaking to CNN, downplayed the significance of the loss in court Sunday and noted it is coming from a magistrate judge. The administration is optimistic it will have a better chance with a federal district court judge but will not be deterred in pursuing the criminal case against Abrego if early appeals do not go its way, the official said. Holmes has set another hearing for Wednesday in Nashville to discuss Abrego Garcia's release conditions. Responding to the opinion, Abrego Garcia's defense attorney Sean Hecker said, 'We are pleased by the Court's thoughtful analysis and its express recognition that Mr. Abrego Garcia is entitled both to due process and the presumption of innocence, both of which our government has worked quite hard to deny him.' Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said Sunday on X that 'Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal illegal alien. We have said it for months and it remains true to this day: he will never go free on American soil.' Abrego Garcia was returned to the US this month to face the charges after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador three months before. He has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of human smuggling related to a 2022 traffic stop in which he drove a Chevrolet Suburban with nine Hispanic male passengers through Tennessee. Justice Department prosecutors allege Abrego Garcia transported undocumented people in the US on more than 100 trips between Texas, Maryland and other states. Prosecutors say over several years, Abrego Garcia 'operated in the illicit world of an international smuggling ring.' But according to legal filings, evidence and statements from prosecutors in the case so far, the man was a cog in a larger alleged scheme of transporting undocumented immigrants from Texas to Maryland for profit. Separately, Abrego Garcia's mistaken deportation had caused a political crisis for the Trump administration. Courts had ordered the federal government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador this spring because he had been mistakenly sent there. Yet the administration didn't bring him back for weeks, until a grand jury handed up its indictment in late May. In a separate federal court proceeding in Maryland, Abrego Garcia's attorneys are arguing for Trump administration officials to be sanctioned because of their handling of his deportation and the lack of information they provided to his legal team following multiple court orders while he was imprisoned in El Salvador. The government deported the father of three in mid-March, violating a 2019 court order that barred his removal to El Salvador because of fears that he would face gang violence there.
