Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland-based construction operative, entered a plea of not guilty in a Tennessee federal court to charges of human smuggling, with his legal team contending that the indictment represents a spurious ex post facto justification for his wrongful deportation to El Salvador in March, a repatriation precipitated and subsequently rectified by a Supreme Court mandate amidst a rising tide of public scrutiny; Abrego Garcia’s defence has challenged the probity of government witnesses, alleging quid pro quo arrangements wherein cooperation was exchanged for immigration leniency, while the charges themselves stem from a 2022 traffic infraction in Tennessee during which Abrego Garcia was found to be conveying nine passengers, thereby arousing suspicions of illicit trafficking, notwithstanding which he was permitted to depart with a mere admonition; in the run-up to the hearing, U.S. attorneys depicted Abrego Garcia as a menace to the community and a flight risk, levelling accusations of narcotics and firearms trafficking, alongside the exploitation of female deportees under his charge, accusations which precipitated the resignation of Ben Schrader, formerly the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee.