Abrego Garcia pleads not guilty to human smuggling charges

Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared in a Nashville federal court on Friday, where he entered a plea of not guilty to charges including human smuggling, according to The Tennessean. About 100 demonstrators, including his wife, gathered outside the courthouse on Friday morning to protest his continued detention, local news reported. Abrego Garcia was secretly indicted last month on charges of conspiracy and human smuggling, according to court documents unsealed last week. He returned to U.S. custody last week after a stint in a Salvadoran prison, according to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

The charges against Abrego Garcia are based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Police allegedly found him driving nine Hispanic men without identification in his SUV, according to the indictment. The indictment also said Abrego Garcia was working with six unidentified accomplices from El Salvador and Guatemala. It alleged that he was a gang member and worked with others to transport immigrants from Texas to other parts of the United States. The government also accused him of other crimes including abuse and involvement in a murder, but did not include them in its formal charges.

What’s the story behind Abrego Garcia’s case? Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland under temporary protected status, was deported to El Salvador in March as an alleged MS-13 gang member. After Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted to an administrative error in his deportation, a protracted legal battle led to the Supreme Court ruling that his deportation was illegal. The court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return, but the government said it couldn’t order El Salvador to return him. Salvadoran authorities eventually released him to face the new charges based on a Department of Justice warrant, according to Bondi.

What will happen to Abrego Garcia if he’s convicted? He would serve prison time in the United States, then be deported to El Salvador again, Bondi said.

What’s happening in the similar case of a Columbia University student? The federal government on Friday said it would not release Mahmoud Khalil from custody. A New Jersey federal judge on Wednesday granted Khalil a preliminary injunction against deportation, and said he couldn’t be detained based on allegations of supporting terrorism. But the government said it would continue to detain him because he withheld information on his application for lawful permanent residency, according to court documents.

Federal immigration agents arrested Khalil, a chief negotiator for student groups aligned with the terror group Hamas at Columbia University, in March, according to Homeland Security. The government planned to revoke his green card. An immigration judge in Louisiana previously held that the government could deport Khalil, as he presented a foreign policy risk, according to the Associated Press.