The Maryland father mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration is back in the United States.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed Kilmar Abrego Garcia had landed on Friday, and he will now face criminal charges for allegedly transporting illegal immigrants.
“He was a smuggler of humans, and women, and children,” she said.
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Abrego Garcia’s return appears to be yet another about-face by Donald Trump after the White House insisted he would not be allowed back into the country.
The stunning move is being seen as a way out for the administration after being hauled over the coals by judges for ignoring court orders.
The indictment, filed in Nashville, Tennessee, accuses the 29-year-old of a conspiracy to move undocumented immigrants from Texas to other parts of the country.
Abrego Garcia, who lived with his wife and children in Maryland, has been accused of being involved in smuggling thousands of foreign citizens from Mexico and Central America. Some were said to be children.
The married father was deported to El Salvador’s top security CECOT prison in March as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Democratic Party lawmakers have blasted the deportation after a Department of Justice official admitted Abrego Garcia was removed from the country by mistake.
Donald Trump and White House advisers, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, insisted that the Maryland resident was a member of the violent MS-13 crime gang. His family and lawyers have denied that’s the case.
Miller claimed that if Abrego Garcia ever returned to America, he would be arrested and kicked out of the country a second time.
The federal filing was reportedly entered under seal in Tennessee last month.
In a statement to ABC News, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said they are determined to get a fair trial.
“From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time. Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life,” he said. “We’re not just fighting for Kilmar, we’re fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone. Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us, if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution.”
NBC News reported that a federal grand jury has indicted Abrego Garcia on two counts, conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gains and the unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gains.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said if convicted, Abrego Garcia will be sentenced to a U.S. prison. He will serve that sentence and then be removed from the U.S.
The administration acknowledged in court papers that a mistake had been made and that a 2019 court order shielding Abrego Garcia from deportation had been violated. He feared persecution from gangs if he returned to El Salvador.
But the White House insisted the father’s gang affiliations should bar him from the U.S. in spite of the error.
Abrego Garcia has been in the country since illegally entering at the age of 13 and has been living in Maryland for 13 years. He has one child with his wife, Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen.
