Facing charges in Tennessee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia described as 'violent man, with no control of his temper'

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man deported by the Trump administration despite a judge’s order to allow him to stay, will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.

Abrego Garcia was returned to Nashville Friday afternoon where he was slated to have an initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Barbara J. Holmes. Prosecutors are asking to detain him without bond, saying he “poses a significant danger to the community.”

“This is what American justice looks like,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Friday afternoon news conference in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, a top-ranking official in the Nashville U.S. Attorney's Office has resigned, according to ABC News, "prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons."

A review of LinkedIn data shows that Ben Schrader's announcement of his resignation was posted on May 21 — the same day as the Abrego Garcia indictment.

"It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I've ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons," Schrader said in his LinkedIn post.

Reached by text, the veteran prosecutor declined to comment.

Abrego Garcia had been at the center of a constitutional showdown between the Trump administration and a federal judge who had ruled that the El Salvador native had been wrongfully deported without due process.

A two-count indictment, unsealed Friday after the defendant landed on U.S. soil, accuses Garcia of being part of a conspiracy “to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before they cross into Texas.”

Abrego Garcia was driving a Chevrolet Suburban east on Interstate 40 on Nov. 30, 2022, when he was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. Packed inside the vehicle, according to authorities, were nine Hispanic men.

According to a motion for detention, Abrego Garcia “told the THP that he and his passengers had been in St. Louis for the preceding two weeks doing construction work.”

Prosecutors claimed that cell phone data and evidence from license plate readers revealed that his story was a lie.

“Specifically, the defendant had been in Texas earlier that same morning and had not been close to St. Louis within the prior two weeks. Moreover, none of the individuals in the vehicle had luggage or even tools consistent with construction work,” the motion read.

“The Government also learned, after obtaining the defendant’s cellphone records, that at the exact minute on the BWC footage that the defendant told the THP officer that the defendant was going to call his ‘boss,’ the defendant placed a call on his cellphone to the owner of the SUV and one of his fellow co-conspirators."

That co-conspirator was "a previously convicted alien smuggler.”

The motion says that investigators interviewed a number of co-conspirators and other witnesses, who will help prove that the traffic stop “was not a one-off transaction.”

“Rather, the evidence will show that the defendant’s actions in November 2022 were part of a larger and sustained pattern of alien smuggling,” the motion continues.

“Specifically, the defendant had been in the alien smuggling business for years, since at least 2016, and it was his primary source of income.”

The motion claims that Abrego Garcia “transported approximately 50 undocumented aliens throughout the United States per month for several years.”

In addition, the government claims, it will be able to show that Abrego Garcia “participated in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother in El Salvador” to become a member of the notorious MS-13 gang.

It was fear of retaliation by that rival gang — the result of “the defendant’s own actions — that was the basis for his claim for asylum in the United States, prosecutors argue.

The motion for detention also claims that other co-conspirators were “concerned about the defendant’s abuse” of undocumented females that they “confronted him about it on multiple occasions and told him to stop.”

On top of that, the motion cites reports of Abrego Garcia’s domestic abuse of his wife and children.

“Taken in totality,” it concludes, “the history and characteristics of the defendant reveal the life of a violent man, with no control of his temper, no regard for the rule of law, and no basis for the Court to have any confidence that the community, including his own family, will be safe if he were released.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, praised the decision of the Trump administration to go through the legal process in determining the man's fate.

"For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution," Van Hollen said in a statement.

"Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States."

Van Hollen added, "As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights — and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along."