Abrego Garcia, mistakenly deported to El Salvador, returns to US to face criminal charges
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported from Maryland to his native El Salvador by the Donald Trump administration, has been charged with transporting illegal immigrants in the US.
Garcia has arrived back in the US to face the criminal charges levelled against him.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi, during a press briefing, said that Garcia has "landed in the United States to face justice. He will face very serious charges".
"Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador," she added.
A federal court in Tennessee charged Garcia with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into America. The indictment was filed on May 21, more than two months after his deportation on March 15, court records were reportedly cited.
The human trafficking charges stemmed from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him. A report from the Department of Homeland Security in April said that none of the people in the vehicle carried any luggage, and they also listed the same address as Abrego Garcia.
Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with a mere warning over an expired driver's license, the DHS report added.
The report further mentioned that he was travelling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people for construction work.
Meanwhile, Garcia's lawyer, Andrew Rossman, said that it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure that he received due procedure.
"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," Rossman was quoted as saying.
As per court records, Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite having an immigration judge's order from 2019, which granted him protection from deportation to his native country after finding he was likely to be abused by gangs if returned there.
Critics of Trump used this instance as an example to talk about the President's excessively aggressive approach to deportations.
While officials defended his deportation, saying that Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. The El Salvador-native's lawyers have dismissed the claims of him being a gang member and said that he had not been charged with or convicted of any crime.
Additionally, the US Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the government cited no basis for what she called his "warrantless arrest".
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Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Decision to bring back Abrego Garcia was of Justice department, not mine: Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday it was the Department of Justice, not him, that made the decision to bring back to the US a man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was flown back to face criminal charges of transporting illegal immigrants within the US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday. His return marked an inflection point in a case seized on by critics of Trump's immigration crackdown as a sign that his administration was disregarding civil liberties in its push to step up deportations of migrants. "Well, that wasn't my decision. The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine," Trump told NBC News in an interview when asked about Abrego Garcia's return. Trump added that he had not spoken to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele about the move. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran whose wife and young child in Maryland are U.S. 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. 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 in El Salvador, despite a U.S. immigration judge's 2019 order barring him from being sent to the Central American nation because he would likely be persecuted by gangs. Trump said he thought it would be "a very easy case" against Abrego Garcia, who he accused of having a "horrible record of abuse" of women. Abrego Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, has called the criminal charges 'fantastical.'
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the US, charged with human smuggling as attorneys vow ongoing fight
To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement. Now it returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welken in a phone interview Saturday President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. 'The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine,' he said. 'There are two ways you could have done it, and they decided to do it that way.' Trump said it should 'be a very easy case.' In announcing Abrego Garcia's return Attorney General Pam Bondi called him 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,' the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. 'The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 'Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from 'Pupuseria Cecilia,'' his lawyers wrote. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for 'rent money' and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S. Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George's County, just outside Washington. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail. In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia's asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a 'well-founded fear' of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him.' In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker in a telephone interview President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. '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,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Self-deporting via app? US offers $1,000 and travel aid for undocumented immigrants
The US Embassy in India Saturday again addressed foreign nationals in the United States announcing incentives for those willing to leave. In a post on X, the US Embassy warned international individuals illegally present in the country to leave immediately. However, it followed this message with what it called a 'historic opportunity for foreign nationals who wish to leave the United States, including those unlawfully present.' The statement said: 'Depending on their circumstances, they might receive financial and other assistance from the US government to depart.' Those interested have been directed to register through the Trump administration's self-deportation Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App. The US government is promoting the CBP Home App for its incentives tied to voluntary exits of illegal immigrants. US Secretary of Homeland Security described self-deportation as the 'best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest.' Foreign nationals in the United States residing illegally should leave immediately. The Department of Homeland Security has announced an historic opportunity for foreign nationals who wish to leave the United States, including those unlawfully present. Depending on their… — U.S. Embassy India (@USAndIndia) June 7, 2025 'DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App. This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens and is a 70 per cent savings for US taxpayers,' she added. Currently, the DHS claims that the average cost to arrest, detain and deport someone from the US is $17,121, The Guardian reported. According to the official Homeland Security website, incentives tied to self-deportation include a $1,000 stipend, and financial and travel document assistance. The stipend is granted once confirmation is received through the CBP Home App that the return has been completed. Those who voluntarily register may also receive help with booking tickets and obtaining necessary travel documentation. 'Aliens requesting assistance will have a timely departure arrangement facilitated for them (estimated departure to be within 21 days of approval),' the website states. Other incentives include a longer departure period for self-funded travellers, deprioritisation for detention or removal by ICE, and improved chances for future immigration options. The DHS outlines two eligible categories: 'Non-criminal aliens illegally in the United States who had an encounter with CBP either at a port of entry or between ports of entry' and 'categorical parolees whose legal presence in the United States has expired or will soon expire.' Applicants must be physically present in the US at the time of applying. Just days earlier, the US Embassy in India had issued another alert for visa overstayers, warning they 'risk arrest and heavy fines or incarceration… may be deported and could face a permanent ban on future travel to the United States.'
