Kilmar Abrego Garcia was flown back into the United States from El Salvador on Friday to face federal criminal charges from President Donald Trump’s administration after being wrongfully deported in March.
The Maryland man is still detained—this time at Putnam County Jail in Tennessee—as the 29-year-old Salvadoran awaits his June 13 court date related to charges of transporting undocumented migrants. Abrego Garcia’s return comes after the Trump administration repeatedly opposed court orders requiring the government to take steps to return him after his wrongful removal by immigration officials.
“Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along—that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, said. “It’s now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.”
Abrego Garcia was erroneously deported on March 15, more than two months before the charges were filed, according to Reuters. He was held in El Salvador’s mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (or CECOT), despite a 2019 order that found his life would be in danger if he were sent back.
In April, the US Supreme Court held that the Trump administration was required to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia. As The New York Times reported later that month, the Justice Department “seemed not to understand” the three court orders directing them to act, “or perhaps was simply ignoring them.”
Then, in May, Abrego Garcia was named in an indictment in Federal District Court in Nashville. The indictment, unsealed on Friday, accuses Abrego Garcia of belonging to the gang and taking part in a conspiracy for almost a decade to “transport thousands” of immigrants without documentation across the US, including minors. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Abrego Garcia’s tattoos are proof of his involvement in MS-13, despite several tattoo experts affirming that they are not indicative of gang relations.
Abrego Garcia made an initial appearance in federal court in Nashville on Friday. The government moved to hold him in custody.
Due to this indictment, Trump, immigration officials, and the Justice Department are able to frame Abrego Garcia’s return to the US not in the context of the multiple court orders requiring the administration to bring him back but in a different light—one in which they are moving forward with an active criminal investigation into organized crime.
“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference in Washington. “This,” she added, “is what American justice looks like.”
When Trump was asked if he had worked with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to take steps to free Abrego Garcia, he responded, “I don’t want to say that. But he’s returned.”
“And,” Trump continued, referring to the Tennessee case, “he should have never had to be returned. You take a look at what’s happened with him; you take a look at what they found in the grand jury and everywhere else.”
Bukele, who had previously claimed he would not release Abrego Garcia, wrote on social media on Friday, “We work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course, we wouldn’t refuse.”
Ama Frimpong, the legal director for CASA, an immigrant rights group based in Maryland, said that Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura,
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