Mistakenly deported man Abrego Garcia returns to US to face migrant transport charges
Mr Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit, was erroneously deported to El Salvador. PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON - Mr Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, has returned to the United States to face criminal charges of transporting illegal immigrants within the US, Attorney-General Pam Bondi said on June 6.
Mr Abrego Garcia's case has become a flash point for escalating tensions between the executive branch and the judiciary, which has blocked a number of Mr Trump's signature policies. The US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Mr Abrego Garcia's return, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the government had cited no basis for what she called his 'warrantless arrest.'
Ms Bondi said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Mr Abrego Garcia to the US after US officials presented his government with an arrest warrant. The indictment was filed in federal court in Tennessee on May 21, more than two months after Mr Abrego Garcia's deportation.
'The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,' Mr Bondi said in a press conference.
In a statement, Mr Abrego Garcia's lawyer, Andrew Rossman, said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process.
'Today's action proves what we've known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' said Mr Rossman, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel.
Mr Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, despite an immigration judge's 2019 order granting him protection from deportation to El Salvador after finding he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned there, court records show.
Critics of President Donald Trump pointed to the erroneous deportation as an example of the excesses of the Republican president's aggressive approach to stepping up deportations.
US District Judge Paula Xinis has opened a probe into what, if anything, the Trump administration had done to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
Officials countered by alleging that Mr Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have denied that Mr Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang and said he had not been charged with or convicted of any crime.
The indictment alleges that Mr Abrego Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the United States illegally, and then transport them from the border to other destinations in the country. Mr Abrego Garcia often picked up migrants in Houston, the indictment said.
The indictment also charges Mr Abrego Garcia and two unidentified co-conspirators with transporting firearms illegally purchased in Texas for resale in Maryland.
Mr Abrego Garcia also transported illegal narcotics purchased in Texas for resale in Maryland and was on some occasions accompanied on those trips by members and associates of MS-13, according to the indictment. REUTERS
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