Jennifer VasquezA Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported from the US before being returned to face criminal charges has pleaded not guilty to two counts related to alleged human trafficking.
Kilmar Ábrego García appeared at a hearing via video link in Nashville on Friday and denied charges of illegally transporting migrants and conspiracy.
Trump officials claim that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation that Mr Ábrego García’s lawyers and family have strongly denied.
After he was deported in March, government officials initially said he could not be brought back to the US, but later had him brought to Tennessee where he was charged.
Mr Ábrego García first entered the US illegally in 2011 and was granted protection from deportation by an immigration judge in 2019 because it was determined he might face danger from gangs if returned to his native El Salvador.
However in March 2025 the Maryland resident was deported and initially held in El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison, in what Trump administration officials later admitted was a mistake. A judge ordered ordered the government to “facilitate” his return, however White House officials initially refused to bring him back.
On Friday, protesters gathered outside the courthouse in support of Mr Ábrego García in advance of the hearing, according to local news reports.
Mr Ábrego García’s wife read out a message outside the hearing.
“To all the families still fighting to be reunited after a family separation, or if you too are in detention, Kilmar wants you to have faith,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura said.
A hearing in front of a federal judge ended without a ruling about whether Mr Ábrego García will be detained or released before his trial. However, the judge said she would issue a written decision “sooner rather than later”.
Even if he is allowed to be released before his trial, Mr Ábrego García is not likely to be immediately freed, as prosecutors could appeal and seek to have him detained on immigration grounds.
In an indictment filed last month, US Justice Department prosecutors alleged that for years Mr Ábrego García conspired with others to bring migrants from Latin American countries into the US.
Prosecutors said that Mr Ábrego García and an unnamed co-conspirator would pick up migrants in Houston and transport them to other places in the US and that they “knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands”, according to the indictment.
The charges, which date back to 2016, allege he transported undocumented individuals between Texas and his home in Maryland and other states more than 100 times.
At one point in December 2022, Mr Ábrego García was briefly detained by a Tennessee highway patrol officer. However, no criminal charges were lodged against him at the time.
His lawyers dispute the government’s case, describing it as “preposterous” and an “abuse of power”.
“There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Mr Ábrego García’s lawyers.
