Where is Kilmar Abrego Garcia now? Salvadoran man returned to the US, charged with human smuggling
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, is now back in the United States to face serious federal criminal charges.
Following months of legal wrangling and mounting tensions between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary, Abrego Garcia finally returned.
Donald Trump said, Garcia is a 'bad guy' and that the courts will 'show how horrible this guy is.,' per Fox News.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed Friday that Garcia had been flown back to the U.S. and is now in federal custody. After his deportation to El Salvador in March, courts repeatedly ordered the government to 'facilitate' his return.
ALSO READ| Abrego Garcia, mistakenly deported to El Salvador, returns to US to face criminal charges
Abrego Garcia is now facing two felony charges in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport undocumented 'illegal aliens' for financial gain. The indictment alleges that Garcia was part of a long-running smuggling operation that transported thousands of migrants many of whom were allegedly linked to the MS-13 gang.
'The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,' said Attorney General Bondi. '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.'
After his initial court appearance on Friday evening, Abrego Garcia answered 'Yes, I understand' in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked if he understood the charges against him.
Judge Holmes scheduled his arraignment for 13 June and will also consider the government's motion to keep him in pre-trial detention, citing concerns that he 'poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight.'
ALSO READ| Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the US, charged with transporting people in the country illegally
'If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years' imprisonment for 'each alien' he transported,' prosecutors said.
'They'll stop at nothing at all — even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable — just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case.' Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said, and added, 'Mr. Garcia is going to be vigorously defending the charges against him,' per ABC News.
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First Post
42 minutes ago
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Wrongfully deported man returned to US to face migrant-smuggling charges
Abrego Garcia's homecoming represented a watershed moment in a case cited by critics of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown as evidence that the government was violating civil liberties in its quest to increase deportations read more Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. File Photo/Reuters Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongfully deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, has been flown back to the United States to face criminal charges for transporting illegal aliens within the country, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday. Abrego Garcia's homecoming represented a watershed moment in a case cited by critics of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown as evidence that the government was violating civil liberties in its quest to increase deportations. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Abrego Garcia, 29, a Salvadoran whose wife and young child in Maryland are US citizens, appeared in federal court in Nashville on Friday evening. His arraignment was set for June 13, when he will enter a plea, according to local media reports. Until then, he will remain in federal custody. If convicted, he would be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence, Bondi said. The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation that his lawyers deny. Officials on Friday portrayed the indictment of Abrego Garcia by a federal grand jury in Tennessee as vindication of their approach to immigration enforcement. 'The man has a horrible past, and I could see a decision being made, bring him back, show everybody how horrible this guy is,' Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that it was the Justice Department that decided to bring Abrego Garcia back. According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the United States illegally, then transport them from the US-Mexico border to destinations in the country. Abrego Garcia often picked up migrants in Houston, making more than 100 trips between Texas and Maryland between 2016 and 2025, the indictment alleges. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It also accuses Abrego Garcia of transporting firearms and drugs. According to the indictment, one of Abrego Garcia's co-conspirators belonging to the same ring was involved in the transportation of migrants whose tractor trailer overturned in Mexico in 2021, resulting in 50 deaths. Abrego Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, called the criminal charges 'fantastical' and a 'kitchen sink' of allegations. 'This is all based on the statements of individuals who are currently either facing prosecution or in federal prison,' he said. 'I want to know what they offered those people.' The indictment also led to a high-level resignation in the federal prosecutor's office in Nashville, with news that Ben Schrader, chief of the criminal division for the Middle District of Tennessee, had resigned in protest. A 15-year veteran of the US Attorney's Office, Schrader had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the administration's actions, and the indictment of Abrego Garcia was 'the final straw,' a person familiar with the situation told Reuters. Schrader declined comment. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Schrader had posted notice of his resignation on LinkedIn last month, around the time the indictment was filed under seal, but he did not give a reason. Abrego Garcia was deported on March 15, more than two months before the charges were filed. He was briefly held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, despite a US immigration judge's 2019 order barring him from being sent to El Salvador because he would likely be persecuted by gangs. Bondi said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had agreed to return Abrego Garcia after US officials presented his government with an arrest warrant. 'The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,' she told a press conference. In a court filing on Friday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to keep Abrego Garcia detained pending trial. Citing an unnamed co-conspirator, prosecutors said Abrego Garcia joined MS-13 in El Salvador by murdering a rival gang member's mother. The indictment does not charge Abrego Garcia with murder. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Abrego Garcia could face 10 years in prison for each migrant he is convicted of transporting, prosecutors said, a punishment that potentially could keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life. Tensions with the courts The case has become a symbol of escalating tensions between the Trump administration and the judiciary, which has blocked a number of the president's signature policies. More recently, the US Supreme Court has backed Trump's hardline approach to immigration in other cases. After Abrego Garcia's lawyers challenged the basis for his deportation, the US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the government had cited no basis for what she called his 'warrantless arrest.' US District Judge Paula Xinis has opened a probe into what, if anything, the Trump administration had done to secure his return, after Abrego Garcia's lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information. That led to concerns among Trump's critics that his administration would openly defy court orders. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In a court filing on Friday, Justice Department lawyers told Xinis that Abrego Garcia's return meant they were in compliance with the order to facilitate bringing him back to the US Sandoval-Moshenberg said Abrego Garcia's return did not mean the government was in compliance, asserting that his client must be placed in immigration proceedings before the same judge who handled his 2019 case. Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic US senator from Maryland who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said in a statement on Friday that the Trump administration has 'finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States.' 'The administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along,' Van Hollen said.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
Wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to U.S. — but a new legal nightmare awaits him
A man who was wrongfully deported is now at the center of a national storm. Kilmar Abrego Garcia , mistakenly deported earlier this year, has been sent back to the U.S, but the story is much more complicated. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador sparked a due process and wills struggle, was returned to the US to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee and appeared in federal court Friday, as quoted in a report by NBC News. What are the new allegations against him? At a Friday press conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated he had arrived 'to face justice.' Pam Bondi says Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who was wrongfully deported and lived in Maryland, is back in the country to face federal charges. The U.S. is indicting 29-year-old Abrego Garcia for trafficking illegal immigrants. Last month, a Tennessee court sealed a two-count indictment alleging that Abrego Garcia conspired to relocate Texas residents deeper into the country over nine years. He collaborated with co-conspirators and transported MS-13 members, according to the indictment. Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be charged with smuggling' undocumented migrants . Live Events A federal grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia for transporting undocumented migrants inside the United States. Abrego Garcia was described by Bondi as a "danger to our community," as per NBC News. Garcia and at least five co-conspirators allegedly planned to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and other countries between 2016 and 2025, according to the indictment filed on May 21. According to the indictment, the group would accept money from undocumented immigrants to transport them and communicated via social media and cell phones. ALSO READ: Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi now in the line of fire - here's what happened and why it matters Garcia traveled as a member of a ring that trafficked women, children, guns, and drugs, the grand jury concluded. Garcia was accused by co-conspirators of abusing women he was transporting and contributing to the murder of the mother of a rival gang member. These charges will be brought against Abrego Garcia in Nashville, Tennessee. Prosecutors say he should be held because he poses a flight risk. Trial testimony will demonstrate that he transported "about 50 undocumented aliens per month for several years," according to a custody memo. For "each alien" he transports, he risks a potential penalty of 10 years in prison, which prosecutors claim is a life sentence. According to the Justice Department, Abrego Garcia "furthered his criminal activity" by using MS-13. Citing the results of the grand jury, President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he should never have been sent back, as per a report by ABC News. Why was Kilmar Abrego Garcia deported in the first place? Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was arrested in the United States on suspicion of being a member of the MS-13 gang , has encountered many difficulties, including legal ones. He has been defended by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who claims that he was not engaged in any illegal activity at the time. Garcia and his family have allegedly been the target of a disinformation and defamation campaign by the Trump administration . Was there any real evidence tying him to MS-13 or criminal activity? Garcia spent 14 years in the United States, working in construction, getting married, and raising three disabled children. ICE stated on March 12, 2025, that his deportation was the result of a "administrative error." Garcia, however, refuted the accusation and was never prosecuted. He was protected from deportation to El Salvador by a U.S. immigration judge because he was probably persecuted by local gangs there. How is his legal team responding to the new accusations? Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia's lawyer, stated that bringing him back for prosecution "is an abuse of power, not justice." Simon attacked the Trump administration for the new accusations against his client, saying that they would do anything, even the most absurd things, to avoid acknowledging their error. To justify Garcia's deportation and in response to court orders, the Trump administration has made a number of accusations against him public. Garcia's return to the United States was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal judge in April, but the administration refused to comply. President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador agreed to send Garcia back after initially refusing to do so, but the administration insisted that it was up to him to do so, as per a report by NBC News. FAQs Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia? He is a Salvadoran immigrant who previously lived in Maryland. He is now accused of smuggling undocumented migrants and is linked to MS-13. Why is Pam Bondi being criticized? Critics argue that Bondi mishandled Garcia's deportation and is now using extreme charges to cover up a legal error.
New Indian Express
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