Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose erroneous deportation to El Salvador has become a political flash point in the application of Trump administration immigration, was sent back to the United States on Friday to face criminal charges related to what the Trump administration declared a massive human smuggling operation which illegally brought immigrants into the country.
His sudden release of El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in a saga which gave a remarkable confrontation and one month between the officials of Trump and the courts for an expulsion that the officials initially recognized were carried out in error, but then continued to stand up in an apparent contempt of the orders by the judges to facilitate his return to the United States in the United States in the United States
Development occurred after the US officials presented to the President of Salvador of El Le Salvador Nayib Bukele a arrest warrant against federal accusations in Tennessee accusing Mr. Abrego Garcia of playing a key role in the smuggling of immigrants in the country against money. He should be prosecuted in the United States and, if he is convicted, will be returned to his country of origin of El Salvador at the end of the case, officials announced on Friday.
“This is what American justice is like,” said Prosecutor General Pam Bondi by announcing the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia and the disappointment of an indictment of the Grand Jury. A appearance before the court in Nashville was scheduled for Friday.
Democrats and the rights of immigrants had pressure for the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia, with several legislators – including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, where Mr. Abrego Garcia had lived for years – even going to Salvador to visit him. A federal judge had ordered him to be rendered in April and the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by ordering the government to bring him back.
But the news that Mr. Abrego Garcia, who had an order from the immigration court preventing his expulsion in his native country, feared that he would be faced with the persecution of local gangs, was brought back to the end of the pursuit was greeted with dismay by his lawyers.
“The government has disappeared Kilmar in a foreign prison in violation of a court order. Now, after months late and secret, they bring it back, not to correct their error but to continue it.
The accusation act, tabled last month and not sealed on Friday, presents a series of allegations which date back to 2016, but are only disclosed now, almost three months after Mr. Abrego Garcia was wrongly expelled and following the repeated affirmations of the Trump administration according to which he is a criminal.
This accuses him of illegally passing thousands of people living in the country, including members of the violent Gang MS-13, from Central America and abusing women he transported. A co-conspirator also allegedly alleged that he had participated in the murder of the mother of a gang member in Salvador, prosecutors wrote in newspapers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while waiting for his trial.
The indictment does not invoice it within the framework of this allegation.
“Later, as part of his immigration procedure in the United States, the accused said he could not return to El Salvador because he was afraid of the 18th street gang,” said the detention memo.
“Although partially true – the accused, according to information received by the government, was in fear of reprisals by the gang of the 18th street – the underlying reason for reprisals was the accused’s own actions by participating in the murder of a mother of the 18th rue Rivale,” the prosecutors wrote.
The accusations arise from a vehicle stop in 2022 in which the Tennessee road patrol suspected him from the trafficking of human beings. A report published by the Ministry of Internal Security in April indicates that none of the vehicle people had luggage, when they listed the same address as Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Mr. Abrego Garcia has never been accused of a crime, while the police have led him to driver with only a warning concerning an expired driving license, according to the DHS report. The report indicates that he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring people to carry out construction work.
In response to the release of the report in April, Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife declared in a press release that he sometimes transported groups of workers between employment sites: “It is therefore completely plausible that he would have been arrested by driving with others in the vehicle. He has not been accused of any crime or quoted for any reprehensible act. ”
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s history and personal life were a source of dispute and disputed facts. The defenders of the rights of immigrants expressed his arrest as emblematic of an administration whose expulsion policy is random and subject to errors, while Trump officials underlined the previous interactions with the police and described him as a member of a gang which corresponds to the mold that they are determined to expel from the country.
Mr. Abrego Garcia lived in the United States for about 14 years, during which he worked for construction, married and raised three disabled children, according to the judicial archives. Trump administration officials said he was expelled on the basis of a 2019 Maryland police accusation that he was a member of the MS-13 gang. Mr. Abrego Garcia denied this allegation and has never been accused of a crime, said his lawyers.
An American immigration judge later protected Mr. Abrego Garcia from expulsion in El Salvador because he probably faced the persecution by local gangs. The Trump administration expelled it there in March, describing the error later as “an administrative error” but insisting that it was in MS-13.
The return of Mr. Abrego Garcia comes a few days after the Trump administration respected an order from the court to return a guatemalan expelled to Mexico despite his fears of being injured there. The man, identified in court documents as OCG, was the first known first person to have been returned to the American guard after the expulsion since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
