The Trump administration has moved to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from imprisonment in a Salvadoran facility in order to file a criminal case against him with charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.
The return of Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported despite being protected from removal to his home country, comes after administration officials had fought court rulings ordering his return. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he would never live a “peaceful” life in the U.S.
The newly unsealed indictment charges Abrego Garcia with unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens and a related conspiracy charge. He stands accused of making more than 100 trips from Texas to other parts of the country over the course of years to transport migrants in exchange for payment.
The investigation stems from when the Tennessee Highway Patrol pulled over Abrego Garcia in December 2022 for speeding, and video of the incident shows the officer skeptical of a van full of passengers without any luggage. The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia falsely told the officer he was driving construction workers from St. Louis, but he was actually on one of his trips transporting undocumented migrants.
“The government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order. Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told The Hill in a statement.
“This shows that they were playing games with the court all along. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice. The government should put him on trial, yes—but in front of the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, which is the ordinary manner of doing things, ‘to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,’ as the Supreme Court ordered.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi lauded the case.
“Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country,” she said.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring. They found this was his full time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women.”
Bondi also said Friday that after his trial, and serving his sentence if convicted, Abrego Garcia would be deported to El Salvador. It’s not clear how such a move would be lawful, as an immigration court judge in 2019 barred him from being deported to his home country.
“This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence. We anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” she said.
The Trump administration had been ordered by several courts to return Abrego Garcia, most recently in a Supreme Court decision from April saying the White House must “facilitate” his return.
For months the White House argued that only meant supplying a plane if the government of El Salvador wished to return him. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a televised Oval Office meeting with President Trump that he would not do so.
But in another recent case, the Trump administration arranged Wednesday for a Guatemalan man wrongly deported to Mexico to return to the U.S. on the return leg of a deportation flight, the first known instance of the administration’s compliance with a court order directing the return of a migrant.
And on Monday, the Justice Department alerted the lower court judge overseeing the ongoing proceedings in the Abrego Garcia case that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was leading negotiations over the man’s return.
The new case against Abrego Garcia will no doubt ignite significant scrutiny.
Bondi said the case was based on “recently found facts.”
“Thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Abrego Garcia, this investigation continued with actually amazing police work, and we were able to track this case and stop this international smuggling ring,” she said.
Friday’s court filings make numerous references to Abrego Garcia’s alleged membership in MS-13, saying he was also often accompanied by members of the gang.
But his family has denied he had any affiliation with the gang.
A review of court records by The Hill show the accusation is largely based on a tip from one confidential informant.
The indictment says Abrego Garcia often brought close relatives when he transported the migrants. When he didn’t, prosecutors allege an unnamed co-conspirator received reports that Abrego Garcia was abusing female migrants.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is still overseeing the Abrego Garcia case, including claims that the administration was in violation of her court order to facilitate his return to the U.S. She has been weighing contempt against administration figures and earlier this week allowed Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to file sanctions motion.
Facing questions from reporters, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he expects the development to end a legal battle demanding Abrego Garcia’s return, including criticism the Trump administration was flouting the Supreme Court by failing to do so.
“There’s a big difference between what the state of play was before the indictment and after the indictment. And so the reason why he is back and was returned was because it’s an arrest warrant which was presented to the government and in El Salvador. So there’s a big difference there as far as whether it makes the ongoing litigation in Maryland moot,” he said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and had demanded his return, said the Trump administration had an obligation to return him to the U.S. and have its claims weighed by the U.S. court system.
“For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,” he said in a statement.
“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
Updated at 4:36 p.m. EDT
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