Country gets first up-close look at the case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The “Maryland man” finally got his first day in court, with Kilmar Abrego Garcia appearing in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit before a federal magistrate judge in Tennessee to plead not guilty to a charge of human smuggling.

Judge Barbara Holmes is still deciding whether Mr. Abrego Garcia should be released from pretrial detention while his criminal case winds its way through the courts. Federal officials have said that if he’s not held on the criminal charges, they’d likely detain him on immigration violations anyway.

At a hearing Friday in Nashville, the country got its first close look at the man whose March 15 deportation has become a flashpoint in the national immigration debate.

Prosecutors also got a chance to lay out some of the Trump administration’s claims against Mr. Abrego Garcia and to face early tests from defense attorneys who said the case is built on flimsy testimony from witnesses seeking favors from the government.

Outside the courtroom, his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said she finally had her first conversations with her husband since his arrest and deportation.

And through her, the country heard from Mr. Abrego Garcia, who she said has felt “God’s presence with him” as he’s faced “the darkness.”

“To all the families still fighting to be reunited after a family separation, or if you too are in a detention, Kilmar wants you to have faith,” she said.

“These dark times are where we’re facing our tribulations that God has put in our path. But keep praying and keep fighting, that the light will always come soon for all of us, and you too will be able to see your family again,” she quoted him as saying.

Mr. Abrego Garcia faces a single charge of migrant smuggling stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, where authorities say he was transporting nine other people in his vehicle.

After he acknowledged that charge and entered his plea of not guilty, lawyers fought over whether he should remain in pretrial detention — an early test of the evidence and seriousness of the crime.

Investigators have been able to identify and explore the backgrounds of at least six of the nine people in the vehicle, and all of them are illegal immigrants, Homeland Security Agent Peter Joseph told the court.

The government’s case is that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a professional smuggler, making numerous monthly trips to bring people from the border deeper into the U.S. for $1,000 to $1,500.

He said others involved in the operation have said Mr. Abrego Garcia also smuggled guns and drugs, and that children were sometimes his passengers.

Prosecutors have said he also solicited nude photos of an underage girl.

And there’s the original allegation against Mr. Abrego Garcia — that he is a member of MS-13 — which came from a police gang investigation unit in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where he lived before his arrest and deportation.

Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said the information against him is suspect, given that it comes from people with incentives to fabricate stories, including a felon who has been deported before and who is now getting lenient treatment from the feds.

The lawyers also said the smuggling charge alone isn’t enough to detain him, since it doesn’t suggest a violent crime.

“If Mr. Abrego Garcia is so dangerous, this violent MS-13 guy, why did they wait almost three years to indict him on this?” said Dumaka Shabazz, one of the lawyers, according to The Associated Press. “Why wait until literally after the Supreme Court told them they denied him due process and they had to bring him back before they investigate him?”

Agent Joseph said he was assigned to the case in late April, or roughly six weeks after the government had deported Mr. Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran prison and at a time when Trump officials said he would never set foot in the U.S. again — and as a federal district judge was ordering him to be un-deported.

That suggests the government was hedging its bets in that other case, before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in the federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Judge Xinis has called the arrest and deportation “unlawful.”

The government now says Mr. Abrego Garcia’s extradition from El Salvador to face criminal charges here fulfills Judge Xinis’ order, even though Mr. Abrego Garcia remains in custody and a different jurisdiction.

Outside the Tennessee courthouse, Ms. Vasquez Sura said she missed Kilmar Jr.’s kindergarten graduation in Maryland to be at her husband’s hearing.

“Our family should never have been in this situation,” she said. “We should be with our children. Me and Kilmar’s mind is here in Tennessee, but my heart is in Maryland with my kids.”