To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador.

The case of the wrongly deported Maryland resident began with a 2019 police encounter at a Home Depot parking lot. It has since become an emblem of the Trump administration’s massive deportation effort.