An August 25, 2025 post on X from the White House depicting Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an alleged MS-13 member.

Since Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia burst into the national zeitgeist amid a crackdown on illegal immigration in March, Trump administration officials in Washington, DC, have reiterated hundreds of times that the Salvadoran is a member of the transnational gang Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13.

That rhetoric has only amplified with Abrego Garcia’s criminal indictment in Tennessee, where federal prosecutors have called him not only a member, but a ringleader in the gang and a prolific human smuggler.

But the evidence of Abrego Garcia’s gang ties remains limited, and has been called into question by immigration judges, magistrates and district court judges.

U. S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee wrote in July that concluding Abrego Garcia is a vicious gang kingpin “would border on fanciful.”

For his part, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys were so concerned about the constant drumbeat from administration officials that they filed a motion in federal court Aug. 28 asking a judge to bar the government, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, from making “prejudicial, inflammatory, and false statements.”

In the filing, they took particular note of an Aug. 25 post on X from the White House they called the "pièce de résistance" underscoring their concern.

It’s still unclear if the alleged gang affiliation will impact Abrego Garcia’s immigration status and criminal case – both of which remain active legal cases, said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney who is now a law professor at the University of Michigan.

“Membership in MS-13 is likely irrelevant to the charges. Either Abrego Garcia did or did not transport individuals with knowledge of their lack of immigration status,” she said. “In addition, evidence is also inadmissible if it is substantially more prejudicial than probative. It will be up to the government to demonstrate to the judge that membership in MS-13 is probative and is not substantially outweighed by the smear value.”

First encounter in 2019 kicks off MS-13 allegation

Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang membership first entered the record in March 2019 when police stopped him outside a Home Depot in Maryland, and he was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Hyattsville Police documents from the encounter show Abrego Garcia told authorities he was not a gang member, despite officers recognizing others in the stop as being affiliated with MS-13.

“At no time did any member of the HPD identify or file any reports classifying Abrego Garcia as a member of any gang,” the police wrote in a news release this year.

But an unnamed police informant told other police from Prince George’s County, Maryland that Abrego Garcia was tied to MS-13. That tie was memorialized in a “Gang Field Interview Sheet.”

The conclusion relied on the informant, and because Abrego Garcia was wearing a “Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations.”

“Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia is an active member of MS-13 with the Western clique. The confidential source further advised that he is the rank of 'Chequeo' with the moniker of Chele.”

The snippet of information was captured by Officer Ivan Mendez.

Just days after the March 2019 encounter at the Home Depot, Mendez was suspended from the force. Court records show he was then indicted in June 2020 for misconduct in office for sharing “sensitive and confidential information about an ongoing police investigation with a commercial sex worker.”

Custody paperwork references gang membership

While Abrego Garcia wasn’t on the ICE radar until 2019, he had been in the country since 2012, living in Maryland.

Before he connected with his now wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the woman was in a relationship with a man named Edwin Ramos. Ramos is the father of children born in 2014 and 2015 who were subsequently raised by Vasquez Sura and Abrego Garcia.

Court documents show Ramos filed a custody petition in 2018 against Jennifer Vasquez Sura.

In the handwritten petition, Ramos wrote: “I’m afraid of my kids live (sic) are in danger because she is dating a gang member.”

A judge dismissed Ramos’ petition in February 2019, a month before Abrego Garcia was detained.

In November 2019, Ramos was charged with second-degree rape, according to court records.

He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, 10 of which were suspended. He remains incarcerated in Maryland, according to state records.

2022 traffic encounter kicks off smuggling charge

In November 2022, Tennessee Highway Patrol officers pulled over Abrego Garcia for speeding on Interstate 40 near Cookeville in a silver Chevy Suburban, about 80 miles east of Nashville.

Footage released of the encounter shows Abrego Garcia at the wheel, explaining he was transporting workers from a construction project in Missouri.

Troopers suspected Abrego Garcia was transporting undocumented immigrants since none of the passengers had identification or luggage, but he was only issued a warning for driving with an expired license.

The encounter created an impactful trail of records. After the stop, the DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations created an investigative referral document about Abrego Garcia.

It referenced the previous Maryland encounter and said, “DHS sources indicate that ABREGO was identified through law enforcement investigations as a member of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)."

The owner of the vehicle, Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, has now become a cooperating witness in the federal smuggling case against Abrego Garcia.

Indictment leans heavily on cooperators

On May 21, a grand jury in Tennessee returned a two-count indictment alleging a conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens.

The indictment says the federal crimes stem from smuggling allegations from 2016 to 2025.

That indictment says flatly: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was also a member and associate of the transnational criminal organization, Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 and used his status in the gang to further his criminal activity.

Those conclusions rely heavily on unnamed government cooperators, including Hernandez Reyes, who will be spared deportation in exchange for his role as a key witness in the prosecution. Hernandez Reyes has also been convicted of smuggling and for an incident in which he drunkenly fired a gun in Texas.

What have judges said about Abrego Garcia’s MS-13 ties?

Abrego Garcia’s alleged tie to MS-13 has received varying degrees of scrutiny from immigration judges, magistrates and federal judges. None of those evaluations have definitely offered clarity on the matter.

Here’s what’s on the record:

∎ April 24, 2019: At a bond hearing, Immigration Judge Elizabeth Kessler denied bond for Abrego Garcia, citing allegations he was affiliated with MS-13. On May 22, 2019, she issued a memo explaining that Abrego Garcia “did not show that he is not a danger to the community or that he presents a flight risk.”

∎ September–October 2019: An asylum and withholding hearing in front of Immigration Judge David Jones granted withholding of removal, denying asylum. It made references to Barrio 18, the Salvadoran gang threatening Abrego Garcia’s family – but not MS-13.

∎ December, 2019: An appeals board considered Abrego Garcia’s appeal of his custody status. He argued that Kessler erred in determining he was an MS-13 member “because there is no reliable evidence in the record” pointing to what he said is hearsay evidence in the gang field sheet. The appeals board was unconvinced and said Kesser appropriately “considered allegations of gang affiliation” in determining bond.

∎ April 2025: District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland questioned the government’s evidence tying Abrego Garcia to MS-13, writing: “No evidence before the Court connects Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any other criminal organization.”

∎ April 2025: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that it was unpersuaded by the government’s evidence about MS-13, writing, "If the Government wanted to prove to the district court that Abrego Garcia was a 'prominent' member of MS-13, it has had ample opportunity to do so but has not – nor has it even bothered to try."

∎ June 2025: Tennessee U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes issued a 51-page ruling questioning the government’s evidence about MS-13. “The government’s evidence that Abrego is a member of MS-13 consists of general statements, all double hearsay, from two cooperating witnesses: the second male cooperator and N.V.," she wrote. "Those statements are, however, directly inconsistent with statements by the first cooperator.” She also noted the government says Abrego Garcia is a “long-term, well-known member of MS-13” but has no reported criminal history of any kind.

∎ July 2025: U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee questioned the “already slim evidence” tying Abrego Garcia to MS-13. “For the Court to find that Abrego is a member of or in affiliation with MS13, it would have to make so many inferences from the Government’s proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful,” he wrote.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia an MS-13 member? Here's what the documents say.

Reporting by Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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