After mistaken deportation, Abrego Garcia fights smuggling charges. Here's what to know

Audio By Carbonatix

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation helped galvanize opposition to President Donald Trump's immigration policies, has hearings on Dec. 8-9 in the human smuggling case against him in Tennessee.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw will hear evidence on motions from the defense asking him to dismiss the charges and throw out some of the evidence. The hearing was originally scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. A brief entry from the judge in the electronic docket does not explain the reason for the change after a nonpublic status conference between the judge and the attorneys on Friday. However, the two sides have been fighting over what documents and testimony the government will be required to provide to Abrego Garcia as he tries to prove the charges against him were motivated by a desire to punish him for the embarrassment of his mistaken deportation.

Here's what to know about the latest developments in the case:

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, where he faces danger from a gang that targeted his family.

While he was allowed to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, he was not given residency status. Earlier this year, he was mistakenly deported and held in a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record.

Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, Trump's Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked Crenshaw to dismiss them.

Abrego Garcia is charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors claiming he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

A Department of Homeland Security agent testified at an earlier hearing that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia has asked Crenshaw to dismiss the smuggling charges on the grounds of “selective or vindictive prosecution.”

In a recent ruling, Crenshaw found “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be vindictive" and said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern." Crenshaw specifically cited a statement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, on a Fox News Channel program, that seemed to suggest the Justice Department charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.

The two sides have been sparring over whether senior Justice Department officials, including Blanche, can be required to testify in the case.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire has argued in court filings that it doesn't matter what members of the Trump administration have said about Abrego Garcia.

“The relevant prosecutorial decision-maker, the Acting U.S. Attorney, has explained on the record that this prosecution was not brought for vindictive or discriminatory reasons,” McGuire writes in a court filing. He adds that any public statements by senior Trump administration officials about Abrego Garcia reflect public safety concerns that are "plainly consistent with a legitimate motivation to prosecute him.”

Another motion from Abrego Garcia asks the judge to suppress evidence in the case. It claims the 2022 traffic stop that ultimately led to the smuggling charges was illegal, so evidence from that stop should not be used at trial.

In support, court filings say the state trooper who pulled him over stated that the speed limit was 65 mph (105 kph) when it was actually 70 mph (113 kph). The trooper accused him of driving at 75 mph (120 kph), but there is no record that the trooper used a radar gun or pacing to gauge the speed. Abrego Garcia said he was driving at 70 mph, correctly noting the speed limit.

Attorneys for the government argue that the trooper made an honest mistake. The speed limit decreases to 65 mph about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) farther down the interstate. The attorneys also note that Abrego Garcia was driving in the left lane “consistent with an individual traveling in excess of the posted speed limit.” And the trooper, they said, had "no reason or motivation to manufacture a traffic violation against him."

Abrego Garcia currently can't be deported to El Salvador thanks to the 2019 settlement that found he had a “well founded fear” of danger there. However, the Trump administration has said he cannot stay in the U.S. Over the past couple of months government officials have said they would deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia.

The administration’s deportation agreements with so-called third countries have been contested in court by advocacy groups, which have noted that some immigrants are being sent to countries with long histories of human rights violations. But in June, a divided Supreme Court allowed the swift removal of immigrants to countries other than their homelands and with minimal notice.

Abrego Garcia sued the Trump administration in a Maryland court over his earlier deportation, and the judge in that case has temporarily barred his removal. If the judge decides to lift that order, government attorneys have said they are ready to deport him right away.

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia has applied for asylum in the U.S. in immigration court.