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U.S. Reps. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., at left, and Juan Vargas, D-Calif., hold pictures of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference to discuss Abrego Garcia’s arrest and deportation, at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, April 9, 2025.
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges involving an alleged undocumented immigrant smuggling ring Friday, months after the Maryland resident was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia has been indicted in federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee on charges related to transporting undocumented migrants within the United States.
A lawyer for the married father of three called the charges “an abuse of power” and accused the Trump administration of “playing games’ with a federal judge who months ago ordered him returned to the U.S.
The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia and others from 2016 through 2025 “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”
The grand jury that issued the indictment found that he made more than 100 trips smuggling thousands of immigrants.
The indictment was issued May 21 but remained sealed until Friday, shortly before Attorney General Pam Bondi announced at a press conference that Abrego Garcia had landed in the United States.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Bondi said.
Signs are left on the ground including two that read “This was a kidnapping” and “Bring Kilmar home now!” as protesters break outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on May 16, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
“They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women … MS-13 members, violent gang, terrorist organization members throughout our country.
Bondi said that the ring Abrego Garcia was allegedly involved with is “responsible for the death of more than 50 migrants in 2021 after the tractor-trailer overturned in Mexico.”
The attorney general also detailed allegations in the indictment for which Abrego Garcia is not criminally charged.
She also said he “abused undocumented alien females, according to co-conspirators, who were under his control while transporting them throughout our country,” and “trafficked firearms and narcotics throughout our country.”
The attorney general also said, “A co-conspirator alleged that the defendant solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor.”
And, “A co-conspirator also alleges the defendant played a role in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother,” Bondi said. “These facts demonstrate Abrego Garcia is a danger to our community.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, in a statement to NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., said, “The government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order.”
“Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
“This shows that they were playing games with the court all along. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
“The government should put him on trial, yes-but in front of the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, which is the ordinary manner of doing things, ‘to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,’ as the Supreme Court ordered.”
The Trump administration says Abrego Garcia is a member of the notorious gang MS-13, which the U.S. considers a foreign terrorist organization. He denies belonging to the gang,
Abrego Garcia was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maryland on March 12.
He was deported three days later in what the administration later conceded was a mistake.
Abrego Garcia was subject to a 2019 withholding order by a judge forbidding his removal to El Salvador because of concerns he would be persecuted there.
Despite its admission that he should not have been removed, the Trump administration has claimed it could not get Abrego Garcia back to the United States, even after a Maryland U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to facilitate his return.
The Supreme Court on in April upheld that order.
In a post on X on Friday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wrote, “As I said in the Oval Office:1. I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States. 2. I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador.”
“That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse,” Bukele wrote.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who traveled to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia after his removal from the U.S., in a statement said, “For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution.”
“Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,” Van Hollen said. “As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights — and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
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