By Bill Pan
Contributing Writer
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a citizen of El Salvador, has returned to the United States to face criminal charges for allegedly smuggling illegal immigrants.
In a press conference on Friday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked the government of El Salvador for securing his return.
“Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country,” Bondi said. “We’re grateful to President [Nayib] Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges. This is what American justice looks like.”
Abrego Garcia, who entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago, had been living in Maryland when the federal officers arrested him and sent him to a Salvadoran maximum-security prison in March. Officials accused him of being a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, which has been designated a terrorist organization.
On May 21, a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted him on two felony charges: smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States and conspiring with others to do so.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Bondi said Friday. “They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
Among those allegedly smuggled into the country were members of MS-13 and other violent gangs and terrorist organizations, Bondi said, citing the indictment. She also noted that the smuggling ring Abrego Garcia is accused of being part of was the same one responsible for the 2021 tractor-trailer crash in Mexico that resulted in the deaths of more than 50 migrants.
“Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” she said.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney called the case “baseless.”
“This is all based on the statements of individuals who are currently either facing prosecution or in federal prison,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
“There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy.”
Abrego Garcia appeared in federal court in Nashville later on Friday. His arraignment and detention hearing is scheduled Friday. He will remain in custody until then.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation has become a flashpoint of President Donald Trump’s effort to remove illegal immigrants en masse. It has also raised legal questions related to due process for illegal immigrant deportees.
In April, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned ruling that stated that a lower court was correct in ordering the government to make an effort to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to make sure “his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
In a court filing on Friday, Justice Department lawyers said that Abrego Garcia’s return meant they were in compliance with the order to facilitate his return.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement: “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.
“Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice.”
Matthew Vadum, Reuters, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
