Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to U.S. to face charges of transporting
illegal immigrants
The Associated Press | Posted: June 6, 2025 9:13 PM | Last
Updated: 6 hours ago
Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador expected to be
prosecuted in the U.S.
Media | Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to U.S. to face human
trafficking charges
Caption: Wrongly deported Salvadoran man Kilmar Abrego Garcia
has been returned to the U.S. to face federal human trafficking
charges. Garcia is accused of participating in a years-long
conspiracy to smuggle ‘thousands’ of migrants into the U.S.
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador
became a political flashpoint in the Trump administration's
stepped-up immigration enforcement, has been returned to the
United States to face criminal charges related to what the
Trump administration say was a massive human smuggling
operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally.
His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and
opens another in a saga that yielded a remarkable, months-long
standoff between Trump officials and the courts over a
deportation that officials initially acknowledged was done in
error but then continued to stand behind in apparent defiance
of orders by judges to facilitate his return to the U.S.
The development occurred after U.S. officials presented El
Salvador President Nayib Bukele with an arrest warrant for
federal charges in Tennessee, accusing Abrego Garcia of playing
a key role in smuggling immigrants into the country for money.
He is expected to be prosecuted in the U.S. and, if convicted,
will be returned to his home country of El Salvador at the
conclusion of the case, officials said Friday.
"This is what American justice looks like," U.S. Attorney
General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and
the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. A court appearance in
Nashville was set for Friday.
Image | Attorney General Bondi
Caption: U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, left,
listens as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announces to a media
conference at the Justice Department Friday that Kilmar Abrego
Garcia will be returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press)
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Abrego Garcia's attorneys called the case "baseless."
"There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree
that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international
MS-13 smuggling conspiracy," attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg
said, referring the gang to which administration officials
allege Abrego Garcia is a member.
Democrats and immigrant rights group had pressed for Abrego
Garcia's release, with several lawmakers — including Sen. Chris
Van Hollen of Maryland, where Abrego Garcia had lived for years
— even travelling to El Salvador to visit him.
A federal judge had ordered him to be returned in April and the
Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by directing the
government to work to bring him back.
But the news that Abrego Garcia, who had an immigration court
order preventing his deportation to his native country over
fears he would face persecution from local gangs, was being
brought back for the purpose of prosecution was greeted with
dismay by his lawyers.
Image | El Salvador Deportation Error
Caption: Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen speaks to the press in
La Libertad, El Salvador, where he arrived regarding Abrego
Garcia on April 16. (Salvador Melendez/The Associated Press)
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Charges 'preposterous'
"This administration,... instead of simply admitting their
mistake, they'll stop at nothing at all, including some of the
most preposterous charges imaginable," Sandoval-Moshenberg
said.
Ama Frimpong, legal director with the group CASA, says Abrego
Garcia's family has mixed emotions about his return to the U.S.
"Let him talk to his wife. Let him talk to his children. This
family has suffered enough," she said.
Sandoval-Moshenberg says Abrego Garcia is one of the first, if
not the first, person released from the notorious prison in El
Salvador where he was originally held. He was later imprisoned
at another facility.
"So it's going to be very interesting to hear what he has to
say about the way in which he was treated," the attorney said.
Image | USA-TRUMP/DEPORTATION-EL SALVADOR
Caption: Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia's wife, looks on
during a news conference with other family members, supporters
and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in
Washington, D.C. in April. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)
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The indictment, filed last month and unsealed Friday, lays out
a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only
being disclosed now, nearly three months after Abrego Garcia
was mistakenly deported and following the Trump
administration's repeated claims that he is a criminal.
It accuses him of smuggling throughout the U.S. thousands of
people living in the country illegally, including members of
the violent MS-13 gang, from Central America and abusing women
he was transporting.
A co-conspirator also alleged that he participated in the
killing of a rival gang member's mother in El Salvador,
prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind
bars while he awaits trial.
The indictment does not charge him in connection with that
allegation.
"Later, as part of his immigration proceedings in the United
States, the defendant claimed he could not return to El
Salvador because he was in fear of retribution from the 18th
Street gang," the detention memo states.
Image | USA-TRUMP/DEPORTATION-EL SALVADOR
Caption: An exterior view of the Fred D. Thompson Federal
Building, housing the U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of Tennessee, where Abrego Garcia faces criminal
charges. (Seth Herald/Reuters)
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"While partially true — the defendant, according to the
information received by the government, was in fear of
retaliation by the 18th Street gang — the underlying reason for
the retaliation was the defendant's own actions in
participating in the murder of a rival 18th Street gang
member's mother," prosecutors wrote.
The charges stem from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the
Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him of human trafficking.
A report released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) in April states that none of the people in the vehicle
had luggage, while they listed the same address as Abrego
Garcia.
* Supreme Court orders Trump administration to return man
mistakenly deported to El Salvador
* U.S. government ordered to bring back Maryland resident
after 'wholly lawless' deportation
Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the
officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an
expired driver's licence, according to the DHS report. The
report said he was travelling from Texas to Maryland, via
Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.
In response to the report's release in April, Abrego Garcia's
wife said that he sometimes transported groups of workers
between job sites, "so it's entirely plausible he would have
been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He
was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing."
Immigrant rights advocates vs. the Trump administration
Abrego Garcia's background and personal life have been a source
of dispute and contested facts.
Immigrant rights advocates have cast his arrest as emblematic
of an administration whose deportation policy is haphazard and
error-prone, while Trump officials have pointed to prior
interactions with police and described him as a gang member who
fits the mould they are determined to expel from the country.
Abrego Garcia lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during
which he worked construction, got married and was raising three
children with disabilities, according to court records. Trump
administration officials said he was deported based on a 2019
accusation from Maryland police that he was an MS-13 gang
member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never
charged with a crime, his attorneys said.
* Trump's fixation on wrongly deported man's tattoos nothing
but a distraction, says lawyer
* Trump says he's unsure whether people in the U.S. are
entitled to due process rights
A U.S. immigration judge subsequently shielded Abrego Garcia
from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced
persecution there by local gangs. The Trump administration
deported him there in March, later describing the move as "an
administrative error" while continuing to insist he was in
MS-13.
Even if Abrego Garcia is convicted of the charges announced
Friday, the Trump administration would still have to return to
a U.S. immigration court if it wanted to deport him to El
Salvador, Sandoval-Moshenberg says. He also expects the case in
Maryland to continue as the federal judge there considers
whether the administration obeyed her orders to return him.
Abrego Garcia's return comes days after the Trump
administration complied with a court order to return a
Guatemalan man deported to Mexico despite his fears of being
harmed there. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was
the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody
after deportation since the start of Trump's second term.
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