Latest news with #migrantSmuggling
The Herald
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald
Abrego Garcia ordered released pending trial on migrant smuggling charges
A US judge on Sunday ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant returned to the US earlier this month after being wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador, released on bail pending his criminal trial on migrant smuggling charges. However, the decision by US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee does not necessarily mean Abrego, as he prefers to be known, will go home to his family. The judge had acknowledged at a June 13 court hearing that Abrego was likely to be placed in immigration detention even if he is released. Abrego, a Maryland resident whose wife and young child are US citizens, was deported on March 15 to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs. Officials called his removal an 'administrative error', but for months said they could not bring him back. Critics of US President Donald Trump pointed to Abrego's case as evidence his administration was prioritising increased deportations over due process, the bedrock principle people in the US, whether citizens or not, can contest governmental actions against them in the courts. Trump, who has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration, said Abrego belongs to the MS-13 gang, an accusation his lawyers deny. The justice department brought Abrego back to the US on June 6 after earlier securing an indictment charging him with working with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the US illegally. Prosecutors said Abrego, 29, picked up migrants from the US-Mexico border more than 100 times, and transported firearms and drugs. Abrego has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers said the Trump administration brought the charges to cover up their violations of Abrego's rights, and said the alleged co-conspirators cooperating with prosecutors should not be trusted because they are seeking relief from deportation and criminal charges of their own. In her ruling on Sunday, Holmes said the government failed to show Abrego posed a danger to the community or was unlikely to appear in court, scheduling a hearing for Wednesday. In a separate civil case, Greenbelt, Maryland-based US district judge Paula Xinis is investigating whether the Trump administration violated her order to facilitate Abrego's return from El Salvador. The US Supreme Court unanimously upheld the order. Reuters
Reuters
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Abrego Garcia ordered released pending trial on migrant smuggling charges
NEW YORK, June 22 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Sunday ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant returned to the U.S. in early June after being wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador, released on bail pending his criminal trial on migrant smuggling charges. But the decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee does not necessarily mean Abrego, as he prefers to be known, will go home to his family. The judge had acknowledged at a June 13 court hearing that Abrego was likely to be placed in immigration detention even if he is released. Abrego, a Maryland resident whose wife and young child are U.S. citizens, was deported on March 15 to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs. Officials called his removal an "administrative error," but for months said they could not bring him back. Critics of President Donald Trump pointed to Abrego's case as evidence his administration was prioritizing increased deportations over due process, the bedrock principle that people in the U.S., whether citizens or not, can contest governmental actions against them in the courts. Trump, who has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration, has said Abrego belongs to the MS-13 gang - an accusation that his lawyers deny. The Justice Department brought Abrego back to the U.S. on June 6 after earlier securing an indictment charging him with working with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the United States illegally. Prosecutors say Abrego, 29, picked up migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border more than 100 times, and also transported firearms and drugs. Abrego has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say the Trump administration brought the charges to cover up their violations of Abrego's rights, and say the alleged co-conspirators cooperating with prosecutors should not be trusted because they are seeking relief from deportation and criminal charges of their own. In her ruling Sunday, Holmes said the government failed to show that Abrego posed a danger to the community or was unlikely to appear in court, scheduling a hearing for Wednesday. In a separate civil case, Greenbelt, Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is investigating whether the Trump administration violated her order to facilitate Abrego's return from El Salvador. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld that order.
National Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
G7 leaders vow to tackle migrant smuggling and foreign interference
BANFF, ALTA. — The leaders of the world's seven wealthiest democracies ended their annual summit Tuesday with promises to tackle six pressing policy issues, including artificial intelligence, transnational repression and migrant smuggling. Article content As the two-day summit in Kananaskis, Alta., came to a close, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the U.S. and the U.K. issued six joint statements tackling wildfires, quantum and critical minerals as well as the three aforementioned issues. Article content Article content Article content Absent from the list was a joint statement from all leaders on the war in Ukraine, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's attendance at the summit Tuesday. Article content Article content Member countries agreed to accelerate their AI readiness and competitiveness and lower barriers to adoption in the private and public sector. Transnational repression (TNR), a form of foreign interference, and illegal migration, which has become an issue of critical importance for many of the G7 member nations, are major issues in Canada. Article content Member states issued a joint statement committing to further combat TNR, a particularly virulent form of foreign interference that uses coercion and threats to silence dissidents and quiet critics. Article content Article content The Canadian government has been seized with the issue of foreign interference, particularly in the case of Chinese interference in elections and India, which is alleged to have carried out an assassination on Canadian soil. Article content Article content '(Transnational repression) undermines national security, state sovereignty, the safety and human rights of victims, and principles of international law. It has a chilling effect in our countries,' reads the statement.
Reuters
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
G7 to explore possible sanctions on criminals linked to migrant smuggling, draft document says
KANANASKIS, Alberta, June 16 (Reuters) - G7 leaders are set to reaffirm a joint commitment that they agreed to a year ago to prevent and counter migrant smuggling, and will explore using sanctions to target criminals involved in smuggling, according to a draft outcome document seen by Reuters on Monday. "Migrant smuggling often has links to other serious criminal offences, including money laundering, corruption and trafficking in persons and drugs, that threaten the safety of our communities," the document said. The document, one of seven being prepared for consensus among the world leaders, tasked interior and security ministers with doubling down on efforts to follow the money trail of smuggling groups, boosting prevention with countries of origin and transit, collaborating with social media companies and engaging with transport operators to prevent the facilitation of irregular migration. "We will explore, consistent with our legal systems, the potential use of sanctions to target criminals involved in migrant smuggling and human trafficking operations from countries where those activities emanate," the document said.
Washington Post
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Kilmar Abrego García scheduled to appear in court in human smuggling case
Kilmar Abrego García, the Maryland resident wrongly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, is scheduled for a hearing in federal court in Nashville on Friday to determine whether he should remain in custody pending trial on charges related to alleged migrant smuggling. Abrego García, 29, was returned from El Salvador last week to face those charges after President Donald Trump and his allies for weeks resisted court orders to bring him back. Lawyers for Abrego García have denounced the government for filing the charges only after officials violated a standing court order that prohibited his removal to his homeland because he faced death threats there from gangs. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other administration officials have accused the father of three of being a hardened criminal with gang ties, alleging in court files that he was one of the prolific smugglers in a ring that illegally transported thousands of undocumented workers across the country. Abrego García, who fled El Salvador as a teenager, is one of more than 200 migrants the Trump administration deported in March to the Terrorism Confinement Center known as CECOT, a notorious prison holding thousands of gang members. The deportations provoked multiple court battles, including over Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants from both Venezuela and El Salvador. Trump officials repeatedly mocked judges' orders to return Abrego García and other detainees. The hearing will be the first opportunity for Abrego García to defend himself in court. An indictment filed under seal last month accuses him of conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens from 2016 to 2025 as a member of the MS-13 transnational gang. Abrego García's lawyers argue that the charges against him do not allow prosecutors to continue detention ahead of trial, while the government says certain factors, such as an alleged involvement of minors, entitles prosecutors to one. On Friday, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes will need to decide whether such a hearing is appropriate, and if so, whether Abrego García's detention ahead of trial is warranted. If the judge denies the government's bid to keep Abrego García in custody, prosecutors said they will likely transfer him into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for additional proceedings in civil immigration courts, where administration officials may ask a judge to lift the 2019 order that barred his deportation to El Salvador. The government has admitted to violating that order, which was issued after Abrego García said he feared being persecuted by a gang that tried to recruit him into its ranks if he was sent back to El Salvador. Prosecutors say investigators have interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence, such as cellphone records, to corroborate allegations that Abrego García conspired with others in the United States and in Latin America to smuggle thousands of migrants, often driving them from the border and earning well over $1,000 a trip. The government alleges he played a significant role in an international smuggling ring that transported about 50 immigrants a month from Texas throughout the United States. The centerpiece of the government's evidence so far is a November 2022 traffic stop of Abrego García near Cookeville, Tennessee, about 70 miles east of Nashville, during which Highway Patrol troopers suspected him of transporting undocumented immigrants for money. A state trooper ran Abrego García's name, which by then was in a federal database of suspected gang members, and saw an instruction to notify federal authorities, according to the Highway Patrol. But federal officials said there was no need to detain Abrego García, the agency said, and the encounter ended with a warning issued to him for driving with an expired license. Federal investigators appear to have revisited the incident after Abrego García's deportation put him at the center of a battle between the Trump administration and the federal courts. Prosecutors say Abrego García told the Tennessee officers that he was transporting construction workers from St. Louis back to Maryland, but that license-plate reader data and phone records showed his story to be false. Special agent Pete Joseph of Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is also expected to testify that one alleged co-conspirator told him Abrego García unsafely transported migrant children, who sat on the vehicle's floorboards. Department of Homeland Security officials have said the SUV Abrego García was driving was registered to another undocumented immigrant who has been convicted of human smuggling, identified as Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes. Acting U.S. attorney Robert E. McGuire argued in a court filing that Abrego García meets the standard for detention because he is facing a lengthy prison sentence for the alleged smuggling scheme — prosecutors argue it could be up to 10 years for each person transported — and, then, possible deportation to El Salvador, making him a flight risk. The government also says Abrego García is a danger to the community and might intimidate or tamper with witnesses because he is an MS-13 gang member. His lawyers and family have denied he is involved with any gang. The Maryland police detective who made those allegations after a 2019 encounter with Abrego García at a Home Depot parking lot was later fired and indicted over misconduct in an unrelated case, though the allegations were entered into a federal database. Abrego García has been in the U.S. since he was 16 and has no criminal record in this country. Lawyers for Abrego García say he should be freed, arguing that he doesn't pose a danger, has no criminal history and is unlikely to face a long sentence. They describe him as a sheet-metal worker and note that he has lived nearly half his life in Maryland and is married to a U.S. citizen, with whom he is raising three children. The government's forcible removal of Abrego García to a nation where he feared for his life likely provides him fresh grounds for refuge in this country, his lawyers argue. 'With no legal process whatsoever, the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego García and shipped him to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world. The government now asks this Court to detain him further,' his lawyers wrote in a motion opposing pretrial detention. Abrego García is one of at least three immigrants who judges have ordered the U.S. government to return to the country. His return came shortly after the U.S. government allowed back into the country a man from Guatemala who said he feared persecution because he was gay. The Trump administration is asking U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to dismiss the lawsuit Abrego García's family filed over his wrongful deportation in March, telling the judge that the case should be moot because the government had 'complied with the Court's order.' Abrego García's lawyers disputed that characterization, saying in a court filing that the administration had engaged in a two-month campaign of 'deliberate foot-dragging' and stonewalling 'to stave off contempt sanctions long enough to concoct a politically face-saving exit from its own predicament.' 'Until the Government is held accountable for its blatant, willful, and persistent violations of court orders at excruciating cost to Abrego García and his family, this case is not over,' his lawyers wrote. Xinis has yet to rule on the government's request.
