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.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges Friday, months after he was mistakenly deported to a prison in his native El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia has been indicted in federal court in Tennessee on a charge related to transporting undocumented migrants within the United States.
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 been returned.
“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,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement to NBC 4 in Washington, D.C.
“”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,
The married father of three 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.
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