After mistaken deportation, Kilmar Abrego Garcia now fights smuggling charges

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.