Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleads not guilty to human smuggling charges
Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty Friday to human smuggling charges, and the judge in case said she would wait to issue a decision on whether he should be released from custody pending trial.
One week after he was brought back to the Unites States from detention in El Salvador, Abrego Garcia entered his not guilty plea at his arraignment in Tennessee, where federal prosecutors have charged him with transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. in what they say was a conspiracy involving the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars.
Following his plea, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes heard arguments over whether he should continue to be detained, after which she said she would likely issue a written order in the near future -- "soon rather than later," she said.
Prosecutors acknowledged in a court filing on Monday that Abrego Garcia would almost certainly be immediately taken into custody by ICE if Judge Holmes were to deny their motion for pre-trial detention -- but they asked the court to consider, for the sake of argument, that he "would have an enormous reason to flee" if he were not immediately detained by ICE.
Much of the government's testimony in support of pre-trial detention came from Homeland Security special agent Pete Joseph, who testified about his investigation into the 2022 traffic stop where Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and told police they had been working construction in Missouri.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol officers ultimately issued no speeding ticket and allowed Abrego Garcia to drive on with just a warning about an expired driver's license.
As ABC News previously reported, the criminal investigation that led to the charges was launched in April as federal authorities began to scrutinize the traffic stop.
Joseph testified that law enforcement officers who pulled over the vehicle asked those in the car to write down their name, date of birth and where they were traveling to -- what was described in court as a "roster" of who was traveling in the car. One person on the roster was a 15-year-old minor, according to the list provided to law enforcement -- a piece of evidence that the government alleges proves that Abrego Garcia also transported minors.
The judge grappled with how much weight to give that information, given that the Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper wasn't in court to testify specifically about the list.
"I'm not saying to you that I'm completely discounting it," said Judge Holmes, who added that she wasn't sure she was willing to accept that because the person was a minor meant that he was a minor victim.
Joseph also testified that some of the alleged co-conspirators and witnesses who spoke with federal authorities alleged that Abrego Garcia sometimes transported noncitizens with his wife and children. His children, Joseph said, sat on the floorboard of the car.
U.S. attorney Robert McGuire argued that showed there was a danger to Abrego Garcia's children, who he allegedly used as "cover."
"I would submit, Your Honor, that his children were at risk," McGuire said. "It is a dangerous business. And it was dangerous for his children."
Attorneys representing Abrego Garcia pressed Joseph about the so-called "deals" witnesses and co-conspirators received in exchange for their testimony.
Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, the owner of the car Abrego Garcia was driving -- and the main witness for the government -- is a two-time felon who re-entered the country five times, according to Joseph.
Reyes, who was serving a 30-month prison sentence for illegal reentry, was recently sent to a halfway house due to security concerns -- a point Abrego Garcia's attorneys focused on during their cross examination.
Abrego Garcia has been the subject of a prolonged legal battle since he was deported in March to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison -- despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution -- after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which his family and attorneys deny.
The Trump administration, after arguing for nearly two months that it was unable to being him back, returned him the U.S. last week to face a two-count indictment alleging that, while living with his wife and children in Maryland, he participated in a yearslong conspiracy to haul undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.
In addition to arguing that Abrego Garcia represents a flight risk, the government contends that Abrego-Garcia's alleged MS-13 ties put him at risk of attempting to obstruct justice or intimidate potential witnesses against him, including his alleged co-conspirators.
"The United States would submit that at least one co-conspirator has described that the Defendant has previously used his membership in MS-13 not just to facilitate his illegal activity in the smuggling conspiracy but also to intimidate others in the conspiracy who attempted to confront him about the treatment of female smuggling victims and his smuggling of firearms and drugs which added to the conspiracy's risk of detection and were not a goal of the overall conspiracy," the government's Monday filing said.
In response, attorneys for Abrego Garcia said in a filing Wednesday that the Trump administration's arguments for a detention hearing are meritless.
"It should also come as no surprise that the government has not cited a single case holding that a generic alien-smuggling charge provides grounds for a detention hearing," Abrego Garcia's attorneys said. "This case should not be the first."
Abrego Garcia's attorneys also argued in the filing that their client is not a flight risk, and said that the government "points to zero facts" suggesting Abrego Garcia has a history of evading arrest, has any prior restrictions, or has "systematically engaged in international travel in the recent past."
The attorneys also argued that there is no "serious risk" Abrego Garcia will obstruct justice, arguing that the government's "baseless gang-affiliation allegations" do not support a finding that he poses a "serious risk" of obstructive behavior.
"[The] government is not entitled to seek detention in this case, Mr. Abrego Garcia respectfully asks the Court to deny the government's motion for detention," the attorneys said.
