Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador before being returned to the United States to face federal charges last week, pleaded not guilty on Friday to accusations of human trafficking and conspiracy.
Garcia’s legal team informed U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Friday that they had time to analyze the indictment and that Garcia understood what he was accused of before formally entering the plea, which arises from a 2022 traffic stop.
Abrego Garcia faces charges of trafficking unauthorized migrants and collaborating with others to do so, Fox News noted.
The criminal case against alleged MS-13 member Abrego Garcia follows a high-profile, protracted legal battle over his deportation and the Trump administration’s efforts to delay his return to the United States, despite the Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” his release earlier this year.
His case has become a national issue in the ongoing debate over President Trump’s hardline immigration policy throughout his second term.
In a court filing Wednesday night, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers urged U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee to release their client from custody while he awaits trial, arguing that the government’s grounds for a detention hearing—and his alleged status as an MS-13 gang member—are without merit.
“Mr. Abrego Garcia asks the Court for what he has been denied the past several months – due process,” his lawyers said, adding that there is no evidence their client is a flight risk, or that he has “systematically engaged in international travel in the recent past.”
Abrego Garcia’s defense have also contested his MS-13 membership, which was based on charges provided by a confidential informant, according to court filings. The source said that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 branch in New York, where he never lived.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia’s wife, told reporters at a news conference in Nashville before to the arraignment that her husband had been “abducted and disappeared” by the Trump government three months ago yesterday.
She stated that the two were able to converse for the first time on Thursday.
“Kilmar wants you to have faith,” Sura said. “He says to continue fighting, and I will be victorious because God is with us.’”
Sura noted that their son, Kilmar Jr., was currently attending his kindergarten graduation ceremony in Maryland. “My heart is in Maryland with my kids,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “But I’m here fighting for my husband, for his dad to come back home.”
Federal prosecutors challenged this and asked the judge to keep him in jail, claiming in their own motion that Abrego Garcia “would have enormous reason to flee” if he was not quickly apprehended by ICE.
According to court filings, the Justice Department filed charges against Abrego Garcia on May 21, creating a flurry of concerns about when the investigation and grand jury impaneling would have occurred.
Abrego Garcia’s family sued the Trump administration in March after the Salvadoran man, who had entered the country illegally in 2012 and was residing in Maryland, was unexpectedly deported to El Salvador in March. An immigration judge determined in 2019 that he might be deported but not to El Salvador.
When Abrego Garcia returned to the United States last week, he was promptly transferred to Tennessee to face federal charges for trafficking unauthorized aliens.
“The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools,” a press release from the Trump administration said.
“Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’ — he is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker… Democrat lawmakers like Senator Chris Van Hollen and the so-called ‘journalists’ who defended this criminal must immediately apologize to his victims,” the DOJ added in a statement.