Kilmar Abrego Garcia back in the US, facing charges
NewsFeed Kilmar Abrego Garcia back in the US, facing charges
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from the US to El Salvador, has been returned to the US, where he will face charges including 'alien smuggling.' US Attorney General Pam Bondi says the charges were returned by a Tennessee grand jury last month.
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Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US police, protesters clash in Los Angeles following immigration raids
There have been tense confrontations in Los Angeles as riot police and demonstrators – protesting federal immigration raids – squared off in the downtown area. Earlier on Friday, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took dozens of people into custody during raids across Los Angeles city. Caravans of unmarked military-style vehicles and vans loaded with uniformed federal agents streamed through the city as part of the operation. The ICE agents raided several locations, including an apparel store in the city's Fashion District, a Home Depot in Westlake District, and a clothing warehouse in South Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles City News Service. In response, crowds of demonstrators protesting the raids massed outside a jail where some of the detainees were believed to be held and spray-painted anti-ICE slogans on the walls of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers – who did not take part in the immigration raids – were called in to quell the unrest. Wielding batons and tear gas rifles, LAPD officers faced off with the demonstrators after authorities ordered them to disperse on Friday night. Some protesters hurled broken concrete towards the LAPD officers, the Reuters news agency reports. Police responded by firing volleys of tear gas and pepper spray. LAPD spokesperson Drake Madison said police on the scene declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, meaning that those who failed to leave the area were subject to arrest, according to Reuters. It's not immediately clear how many arrests have been made. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the federal immigration raids, saying they 'sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city'. Caleb Soto, of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told Al Jazeera that between 70 and 80 people had been detained, but only three lawyers have been allowed access to the detention centre where they were being held to provide legal advice. 'The chaotic manner of the raids that we saw today happening throughout Los Angeles and different day-labour worksites and garment worker work sites was an example of the purpose of what this Trump administration has set out to do, which is create as much fear as possible,' Soto told Al Jazeera. He said the ICE agents conducting the raids did not obtain a judicial warrant required under US law, and granted by a judge if there is probable cause to carry out an arrest because of suspected criminal activity. Soto said ICE agents were showing up at work sites 'where they know that there are a lot of immigrant workers' and 'people without documents', and if someone starts running they use that as 'reasonable suspicion' that the person is undocumented. 'They use that as the pretext to start arresting people who are there in that area and around them. We find that to be pretty unconstitutional,' he said. The Los Angeles raids are the latest sweeps in several US cities over recent months as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Trump, who took immediate steps to ramp up immigration enforcement after taking office in January, has promised to arrest and deport undocumented migrants in record numbers. In late May, his administration stated it would revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people in the country, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Police, protesters clash in Los Angeles following immigration raids
There have been tense confrontations in Los Angeles as riot police and demonstrators – protesting federal immigration raids – squared off in the downtown area. Earlier on Friday, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took dozens of people into custody during raids across Los Angeles city. Caravans of unmarked military-style vehicles and vans loaded with uniformed federal agents streamed through the city as part of the operation. The ICE agents raided several locations, including an apparel store in the city's Fashion District, a Home Depot in Westlake District, and a clothing warehouse in South Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles City News Service. In response, crowds of demonstrators protesting the raids massed outside a jail where some of the detainees were believed to be held and spray-painted anti-ICE slogans on the walls of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers – who did not take part in the immigration raids – were called in to quell the unrest. Wielding batons and tear gas rifles, LAPD officers faced off with the demonstrators after authorities ordered them to disperse on Friday night. Some protesters hurled broken concrete towards the LAPD officers, the Reuters news agency reports. Police responded by firing volleys of tear gas and pepper spray. LAPD spokesperson Drake Madison said police on the scene declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, meaning that those who failed to leave the area were subject to arrest, according to Reuters. It's not immediately clear how many arrests have been made. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the federal immigration raids, saying they 'sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city'. Caleb Soto, of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told Al Jazeera that between 70 and 80 people had been detained, but only three lawyers have been allowed access to the detention centre where they were being held to provide legal advice. 'The chaotic manner of the raids that we saw today happening throughout Los Angeles and different day-labour worksites and garment worker work sites was an example of the purpose of what this Trump administration has set out to do, which is create as much fear as possible,' Soto told Al Jazeera. He said the ICE agents conducting the raids did not obtain a judicial warrant required under US law, and granted by a judge if there is probable cause to carry out an arrest because of suspected criminal activity. Soto said ICE agents were showing up at work sites 'where they know that there are a lot of immigrant workers' and 'people without documents', and if someone starts running they use that as 'reasonable suspicion' that the person is undocumented. 'They use that as the pretext to start arresting people who are there in that area and around them. We find that to be pretty unconstitutional,' he said. The Los Angeles raids are the latest sweeps in several US cities over recent months as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Trump, who took immediate steps to ramp up immigration enforcement after taking office in January, has promised to arrest and deport undocumented migrants in record numbers. In late May, his administration stated it would revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people in the country, including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
Al Jazeera
13 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to US to face charges
A man the Donald Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been brought back to the United States, where authorities say he will face criminal charges. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, a Salvadoran immigrant who had lived nearly half his life in Maryland before he was deported in March, faces charges of transporting undocumented migrants inside the US, according to recently unsealed court records. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday that Abrego Garcia was returned to the US to 'face justice'. The indictment against him was filed on May 21, more than two months after he was deported in spite of a court order barring his removal. The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, which suspected Abrego Garcia of human trafficking but ultimately issued only a warning for an expired driver's license, according to a Department of Homeland Security report. Bondi, speaking at a news conference, said a grand jury had 'found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring'. She said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant. Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador as part of a Trump scheme to move undocumented migrants it accuses of being gang members, to prison in the Central American country without due process. Bukele said in a social media post that his government works with the Trump administration and 'of course' would not refuse a request to return 'a gang member' to the US. Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said Abrego Garcia could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. But 'that does not deal with the ongoing matter of whether or not he should be deported', she added. 'That's a separate legal matter.' Abrego Garcia will have the chance to enter a plea in court and contest the charges at trial. If he is convicted, he would be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence, Bondi said. In a statement, 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 Rossman, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel. Abrego Garcia's deportation defied an immigration judge's 2019 order granting him protection from being sent back to El Salvador, where it found he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned, court records show. Trump critics pointed to the erroneous deportation as an example of the excesses of the Republican president's aggressive approach to stepping up deportations. Officials countered by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have denied that he was a gang member and said he had not been convicted of any crime. Abrego Garcia's case has become a flash point for escalating tensions between the executive branch and the judiciary, which has ruled against a number of Trump's policies. The US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's 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 also opened a probe into what, if anything, the Trump administration did to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
