Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador put a spotlight on President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, pleaded not guilty to charges of human smuggling in Nashville.
After months of being detained in an El Salvadoran prison, Abrego Garcia’s path to release is uncertain. Federal Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes did not rule from the bench Friday afternoon on whether Abrego Garcia has a right to bail. However, a detainer from Immigration and Custom Enforcement means that if he is released, Abrego Garcia will be transferred to ICE custody, where officials say he will be held until his trial or his deportation.
U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire argued that Abrego Garcia’s fame makes him a flight risk, as his deportation has sparked “strong feelings” among critics of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
“A tiny fraction of those people would consider assisting a fugitive, (but) that number is not zero, and that is a unique perspective that this defendant has,” McGuire said.
“He would have to break out of ICE custody for him to ever reach the street,” Judge Holmes said.
Friday’s hearing drew more than a hundred protesters to downtown Nashville, who criticized the charges against Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia arrived back in the U.S. last week, more than a month after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return. Federal immigration agents deported Abrego Garcia in March despite a court order that he remain in the U.S. over fears of gang violence in his home country.
Prosecutors accuse Abrego Garcia of transporting people without legal status from Texas to Maryland as part of an operation for the MS-13 gang.
The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. In body camera footage played for the court, Abrego Garcia can be seen driving an SUV with nine other men. Prosecutors said one of the nine people in the car was a minor.
Homeland Security agent Peter Joseph testified that two people cooperating with the investigation have said that Abrego Garcia was paid to drive people from the border in Texas.
One of those sources, called Cooperator 1 in court, has been deported five times and was serving a 30-month jail sentence when Homeland Security began its investigation in late April. Cooperator 1 has been moved from jail to a halfway house in exchange for his cooperation and will soon be given authorization to leave custody for work, Joseph testified.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Dumaka Shabazz, said the court should approach the government’s case with “suspicion.”
“Why do I say suspicion? When you look at the timing of the indictment, the timing of the investigation, (it) came after the government denied him due process,” Shabazz said.
Before the arraignment, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said she has not been able to see her husband for three months.
“Kilmar was taken on March 12, and it was not until yesterday that i was able to visit him for the first time. Even though it was through a video screen, I was finally able to see Kilmar,” she said.
Prosecutors pointed to civil protective orders that Vasquez filed against Abrego Garcia in 2020 and 2021 as part of their arguments against his release. Vasquez has said that the protective order was out of an abundance of caution because of a past abusive relationship.
“We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect,” Vasquez told CNN.
In documents filed before Friday’s arraignment, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said that “the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and shipped him to … one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world.”
The case against Abrego Garcia made one top official in Nashville’s U.S. attorney’s office resign, sources tell the Associated Press. Ben Schrader left his position as chief of the office’s criminal division just before the indictment was sealed, but has not publicly said why.
“It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
The judge is expected to rule soon on whether Abrego Garcia will have a detention hearing.
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