The Trump administration brought back a man it “mistakenly deported” to El Salvador so it can charge him for allegedly having “transported thousands of undocumented aliens” into the U.S., according to an indictment made public Friday.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference Friday afternoon. “Guns, narcotics, children, women, MS-13 members. That is what the grand jury found.”
Bondi said his alleged crimes took place over nine years, and clarified that he’s only charged with allegations related to smuggling migrants. She said he would be deported to El Salvador again “upon completion of his sentence.” Abrego Garcia’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the indictment, dated May 21, the government alleges that co-conspirators say Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 member, which his counsel and family members have denied, that he “abused some of the female undocumented aliens” he transported and that he made “more than 100 trips between Texas to Maryland and other states” to transport migrants, drugs and guns.
Abrego Garcia’s case, despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge barring his deportation to El Salvador, led to battles in federal court that ultimately forced the Supreme Court to unanimously weigh in. It ordered the Trump administration in April to “facilitate” his return — which led to even more court disputes and was met with more holdups from administration lawyers.
It’s one of the most closely watched immigration battles playing out in the second Trump administration, with even Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele weighing in at one point to argue he had no “power” to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
“This shows that they were playing games with the court all along,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told NPR in a statement. “Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice. 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.”
On Friday, the United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he expects the battle playing out in a federal court in Maryland to go away.
“There’s a big difference between what the state of play was before the indictment and after the indictment, and so the reason why he is back and was returned is because it was an arrest warrant,” Blanche said. “Whether it makes the ongoing litigation in Maryland moot, I would think so. But we don’t know about that, you know, he just landed today.”
Bondi said on Friday that the matter of the administration returning Abrego Garcia from El Salvador ended up being quite simple: “Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country.”
Abrego Garcia’s return also comes after a string of Democratic lawmakers traveled to El Salvador to attempt to visit him while he was being held there for nearly three months.
After Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with him in April, Abrego Garcia was transferred from El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison to a lower-security facility.
Van Hollen celebrated Abrego Garcia’s return Friday in a statement emailed to NOTUS.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, who was denied access to visit Abrego Garcia when he visited El Salvador last week, said he’s glad that his constituent will finally get an opportunity for due process.
“President Trump and his Administration defied the Supreme Court and misled the American people for months, saying they could not bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States under any circumstances, knowing that they had the power to do so all along,” he wrote in a statement emailed to NOTUS. “I went to El Salvador and advocated for Kilmar’s return because he was entitled to due process under our constitution. Kilmar will now get his day in court. I hope he receives the fair trial that he is guaranteed.”
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Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.