Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared in a Tennessee courtroom Friday, hours after he was brought back to the U.S. to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants.

He made his initial court appearance Friday evening in the Middle District of Tennessee, answering “Yes, I understand” in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked him if he understood the charges against him.

Judge Homes set a hearing for June 13, where Abrego Garcia will be arraigned on charges and the judge will take up the government’s motion to hold him in pre-trial detention on the grounds that he “poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight” He will remain in federal custody in Tennessee pending next week’s hearing.

“If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment for ‘each alien’ he transported,” said the government’s motion for detention, which also contained an allegation – not included in the indictment – that one of Abrego Garcia’s co-conspirators told authorities that Abrego Garcia participated in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother in El Salvador.

  • ChucklestheclownEnglish
    1·
    10 hours ago

    He is charged with human trafficking. He was trafficking women into prostitution and several witnesses are testifying against him.

      • ChucklestheclownEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        Democrats are supporting this idiot saying he’s a model citizens. Several Democrats Congress people went to go visit him in prison. He’s not a citizen.

            • nieminen@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              5 hours ago

              All I see are allegations and racial profiling… I’m trying to be open here, the source you provided is a cop stating something he can’t possibly know without a full investigation, from a perfectly reasonable traffic stop where he was transporting his work crew, and then the DHS taking it as gospel.

              I’m tired of this guilty until proven innocent shit. That’s not how our legal system works (not how it’s supposed to anyway). If they have real evidence, and it holds up in trial leading to a conviction, that’s when we can say he’s a criminal. Until then he’s a victim of a horribly abused system, and a racially motivated force of goons who will take any opportunity to intimidate or abuse a brown person.

              I get that you agree he should have never been sent to cecot, but the same people that sent him there without a hint of due process, and refused to return him despite a unanimous scotus ruling, are the same people bringing up these charges. I’m suspicious of it being above board given how he’s been handled so far.