The Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in the spring was officially returned to U.S. soil Friday, June 6, where he will face charges brought by the Trump administration related to human trafficking. Those charges, his attorneys contend, are “baseless” and “preposterous.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on March 12. Three days later, he was placed on a flight and sent to a notorious “mega-prison” in El Salvador, despite having a 2019 court order granting him protection from deportation.
Shortly thereafter, an ICE official said Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error,” while a lawyer for the Department of Justice (DOJ) said he was unaware of why the Salvadoran national was initially arrested.
The case sparked a months-long political and legal back-and-forth, with rulings ordering the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return being handed down by the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court later paused that order at the administration’s request.
Abrego Garcia returns to the US
While the Trump administration maintained it could not tell El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., an arrest warrant was eventually presented to the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, paving the way for Friday’s return. That arrest warrant includes federal charges in Tennessee that accuse the husband and father of three of engaging in human smuggling. If convicted, he will be returned to El Salvador at the conclusion of his sentence.
The indictment unsealed Friday alleged that Abrego Garcia engaged in a sprawling human smuggling ring that brought people from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. by way of Texas. The Maryland man is accused of participating in more than 100 trips around the U.S., and could face up to 10 years in prison for each individual who was transported, which allegedly included women, children and members of MS-13.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said while announcing the indictment. “They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
Bondi added, “This is what American justice looks like.”
Legal team refutes allegations, US attorney’s office supervisor resigns
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, refuted the allegations, saying, “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.”
Abrego Garcia will remain in custody until his arraignment and detention hearing, which is expected to take place next Friday, June 13. That decision came from a federal magistrate judge in Nashville, Tennessee.
Meanwhile, in Nashville, a top supervisor who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office handed in his resignation when the indictment came down. He wrote on social media, “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.”
Competing narratives have been at the heart of Abrego Garcia’s case since the beginning.
The Justice Department initially stated that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was in error. Weeks later, under pressure to provide evidence tying him to MS-13, the agency released some documents. Those included a Maryland police officer’s report identifying Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang following a 2019 arrest, noting gang-symbolic clothing and an anonymous source identifying him as an active member.
At the same time, however, the administration also said that an image of tattoos on Abrego Garcia’s hands proved he was a member of MS-13. Those tattoos and that image were later determined to be photoshopped.
Though the administration has lodged numerous allegations against him, Abrego Garcia currently does not have a criminal record in the U.S. or El Salvador.
Sandoval-Moshenberg has accused the administration of resorting to “preposterous charges,” saying it will “stop at nothing” rather than “simply admitting their mistake.”
