WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in a new interview that he didn’t speak with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States to face human trafficking charges, saying the move wasn’t his choice.
Trump told NBC News on June 7 it “wasn’t my decision” to bring Abrego Garcia back to the country. Instead, he told the outlet the U.S. Justice Department “decided to do it that way, and that’s fine.”
Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker and father of three from Maryland, was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March despite a 2019 court order barring his removal. His case drew national attention, after a standoff among the Trump administration, the courts and some congressional Democrats over his release.
In April, a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Officials claimed they couldn’t force a sovereign nation − El Salvador − to relinquish a prisoner.
The Trump administration insists that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, but a federal judge had previously questioned the strength of the government’s evidence. Abrego Garcia denies being a gang member.
Now, the Maryland man faces new charges on American soil. At a June 6 press conference, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Abrego Garcia of making over 100 trips to smuggle undocumented immigrants across the nation.
The indictment against Abrego Garcia alleges that he and co-conspirators worked with people in other countries to transport immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, and Mexico, and then took the people from Houston to Maryland, often varying their routes, and coming up with cover stories about construction if they were pulled over.
Trump told NBC News he believes “it should be a very easy case” for federal prosecutors.
But Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, criticized the Justice Department for bringing these charges at all: “Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice.”
Contributing: USA TODAY Staff
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says Abrego Garcia’s return to US ‘wasn’t my decision’
