The Trump administration has brought back to the U.S. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant at the heart of a major deportation legal battle, to stand trial on criminal charges, Trump officials said.
The move on Friday breaks the White House’s vow that Mr. Abrego Garcia would never set foot in the U.S. and, if he did, he would be promptly deported again.
Instead, the Justice Department said he will face charges of migrant smuggling. A grand jury indictment accused him of being part of a ring that “smuggled thousands of aliens into and throughout the United States.”
The charges give the administration a face-saving end to what had become a brewing constitutional crisis, with a federal judge fuming over Homeland Security’s lack of willingness to un-deport him and give him more “due process” here.
“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi announced.
Mr. Abrego Garcia had been in the custody of El Salvador for nearly three months after his snap deportation in March. He was living in Maryland before being deported.
Ms. Bondi said with the criminal indictment, the U.S. was able to present El Salvador with a warrant for his arrest, and El Salvador — which had insisted it had custody of him — turned him over to American authorities.
Mr. Bondi said Mr. Abrego Garcia made more than 100 trips to smuggle migrants, including gang members and children, and he smuggled guns and drugs, too.
One co-conspirator said Mr. Abrego Garcia was complicit in a murder, Ms. Bondi said.
She said the ring that Mr. Abrego Garcia was part of was responsible for a tragic accident in Mexico where a truck overturned, killing more than 50 people in 2021.
His case has become a rallying cry for Democrats, who portrayed him as the victim of a botched deportation effort and a symbol of the administration’s alleged overreach in enforcing immigration laws.
Mr. Abrego Garcia was part of three planeloads of migrants sent to El Salvador’s terrorist prison. Most were Venezuelans whom the U.S. said are members of Tren de Aragua, and Homeland Security is paying El Salvador to hold them because Venezuela wouldn’t take them back.
But dozens were Salvadorans the U.S. accused of being part of MS-13. Mr. Abrego Garcia is among that group.
He is the second person to be un-deported by the Trump administration this week.
Homeland Security also allowed a Guatemalan man identified in court documents only by initials OCG to come back to the U.S. He was wrongly deported to Mexico without ever being asked if he had a fear of persecution or torture in that country.
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s own deportation was highly controversial.
Initially, the Trump administration said he was wrongly deported to El Salvador. An immigration judge had said that while he could be deported, he couldn’t be sent to his home country because he risked being persecuted or tortured.
But later the administration insisted the deportation was in fact allowed.
That’s because Mr. Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, and now that MS-13 has been declared a terrorist organization, the grounds for withholding his removal to El Salvador don’t matter.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said Mr. Abrego Garcia “will not be returning to our country.”
The reason why he is back and was returned is because there was an arrest warrant.
Mr. Abrego Garcia was caught on a video by police in Tennessee in 2022 driving a vehicle piled with people. The local authorities said it seemed like a smuggling attempt, but no action was taken at the time.
Ms. Bondi said it was only after the Trump administration drew attention to Mr. Abrego Garcia that an investigation developed the new information about his alleged role as a smuggler.
She credited President Trump with pushing the issue.
