Attorney General Pam Bondi and other administration officials have accused the father of three of being a hardened criminal with gang ties, alleging in court files that he was one of the prolific smugglers in a ring that illegally transported thousands of undocumented workers across the country.

Abrego García, who fled El Salvador as a teenager, is one of more than 200 migrants the Trump administration deported in March to the Terrorism Confinement Center known as CECOT, a notorious prison holding thousands of gang members. The deportations provoked multiple court battles, including over Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants from both Venezuela and El Salvador. Trump officials repeatedly mocked judges’ orders to return Abrego García and other detainees.

The hearing will be the first opportunity for Abrego García to defend himself in court. An indictment filed under seal last month accuses him of conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens from 2016 to 2025 as a member of the MS-13 transnational gang.

Abrego García’s lawyers argue that the charges against him do not allow prosecutors to continue detention ahead of trial, while the government says certain factors, such as an alleged involvement of minors, entitles prosecutors to one. On Friday, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes will need to decide whether such a hearing is appropriate, and if so, whether Abrego García’s detention ahead of trial is warranted.

If the judge denies the government’s bid to keep Abrego García in custody, prosecutors said they will likely transfer him into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for additional proceedings in civil immigration courts, where administration officials may ask a judge to lift the 2019 order that barred his deportation to El Salvador.

The government has admitted to violating that order, which was issued after Abrego García said he feared being persecuted by a gang that tried to recruit him into its ranks if he was sent back to El Salvador.

Prosecutors say investigators have interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence, such as cellphone records, to corroborate allegations that Abrego García conspired with others in the United States and in Latin America to smuggle thousands of migrants, often driving them from the border and earning well over $1,000 a trip. The government alleges he played a significant role in an international smuggling ring that transported about 50 immigrants a month from Texas throughout the United States.

The centerpiece of the government’s evidence so far is a November 2022 traffic stop of Abrego García near Cookeville, Tennessee, about 70 miles east of Nashville, during which Highway Patrol troopers suspected him of transporting undocumented immigrants for money. A state trooper ran Abrego García’s name, which by then was in a federal database of suspected gang members, and saw an instruction to notify federal authorities, according to the Highway Patrol. But federal officials said there was no need to detain Abrego García, the agency said, and the encounter ended with a warning issued to him for driving with an expired license.

Federal investigators appear to have revisited the incident after Abrego García’s deportation put him at the center of a battle between the Trump administration and the federal courts. Prosecutors say Abrego García told the Tennessee officers that he was transporting construction workers from St. Louis back to Maryland, but that license-plate reader data and phone records showed his story to be false.

Special agent Pete Joseph of Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is also expected to testify that one alleged co-conspirator told him Abrego García unsafely transported migrant children, who sat on the vehicle’s floorboards.

Department of Homeland Security officials have said the SUV Abrego García was driving was registered to another undocumented immigrant who has been convicted of human smuggling, identified as Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes.

Acting U.S. attorney Robert E. McGuire argued in a court filing that Abrego García meets the standard for detention because he is facing a lengthy prison sentence for the alleged smuggling scheme — prosecutors argue it could be up to 10 years for each person transported — and, then, possible deportation to El Salvador, making him a flight risk. The government also says Abrego García is a danger to the community and might intimidate or tamper with witnesses because he is an MS-13 gang member.

His lawyers and family have denied he is involved with any gang. The Maryland police detective who made those allegations after a 2019 encounter with Abrego García at a Home Depot parking lot was later fired and indicted over misconduct in an unrelated case, though the allegations were entered into a federal database. Abrego García has been in the U.S. since he was 16 and has no criminal record in this country.

Lawyers for Abrego García say he should be freed, arguing that he doesn’t pose a danger, has no criminal history and is unlikely to face a long sentence. They describe him as a sheet-metal worker and note that he has lived nearly half his life in Maryland and is married to a U.S. citizen, with whom he is raising three children. The government’s forcible removal of Abrego García to a nation where he feared for his life likely provides him fresh grounds for refuge in this country, his lawyers argue.

“With no legal process whatsoever, the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego García and shipped him to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world. The government now asks this Court to detain him further,” his lawyers wrote in a motion opposing pretrial detention.

Abrego García is one of at least three immigrants who judges have ordered the U.S. government to return to the country. His return came shortly after the U.S. government allowed back into the country a man from Guatemala who said he feared persecution because he was gay.

The Trump administration is asking U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to dismiss the lawsuit Abrego García’s family filed over his wrongful deportation in March, telling the judge that the case should be moot because the government had “complied with the Court’s order.”

Abrego García’s lawyers disputed that characterization, saying in a court filing that the administration had engaged in a two-month campaign of “deliberate foot-dragging” and stonewalling “to stave off contempt sanctions long enough to concoct a politically face-saving exit from its own predicament.”

“Until the Government is held accountable for its blatant, willful, and persistent violations of court orders at excruciating cost to Abrego García and his family, this case is not over,” his lawyers wrote.

Xinis has yet to rule on the government’s request.