Abrego Garcia back in US to face federal charges

BALTIMORE — Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the U.S. to face a federal indictment in Tennessee accusing him of transporting across the country hundreds of people who had entered the U.S. illegally.

The sprawling two-count indictment alleges the Beltsville resident conspired with others for nearly a decade to transport people, as well as narcotics and firearms “on occasions,” in over 100 trips from Texas to Maryland and other states. It marks a surprising turnaround in the mistakenly deported Maryland man’s legal saga after months of litigation seeking to bring him back.

Since being deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison in March, the Trump administration has defied a judge’s orders to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. or communicate their efforts to do so.

Experts have warned of a ongoing constitutional crisis due to the Trump administration’s failure to grant Abrego Garcia a hearing or abide by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ rulings. Justice Department officials said at a Friday afternoon news conference that they believed Abrego Garcia’s indictment and return made the matter moot.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the U.S. to face justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a Friday afternoon news conference. She said that El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has previously refused to release Abrego Garcia, had agreed to return the 29-year-old after being presented with an arrest warrant.

Abrego Garcia is charged in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee with conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.“ In a filing to keep Abrego Garcia detained in the U.S., the Justice Department said that his potential sentence, if he is convicted, “goes well beyond the remainder of [his] life.”

Abrego Garcia was stopped by Tennessee’s highway patrol in 2022, while transporting eight people. Officers suspected that the matter “was a human trafficking incident,” according to a Department of Homeland Security document, though Abrego Garcia was not initially detained or charged.

That traffic stop appears to be at least part of the basis for the indictment, which was filed under seal in late May and cites the encounter. The indictment also accuses Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13.

Since his deportation in March, which Xinis ruled was illegal, Abrego Garcia has been held in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center as well as in a smaller prison in Santa Ana. Trump administration officials had said that he was “never coming back” to the U.S., despite a Supreme Court ruling affirming Xinis’ order to facilitate his return.

For months, the Trump administration has tried to publicly justify Abrego Garcia’s removal, repeatedly accusing him of presenting a public danger.

In April, Bondi posted a series of documents on X, including a 2019 “gang field interview sheet” from Prince George’s County Police that cited a Chicago Bulls hat and a shirt as being “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.”

The only other piece of corroborating evidence was a confidential source, according to the document, and members of the public have called the integrity of the police officer who authored the report into question.

The 2019 investigation led to an immigration hearing, in which a judge decided Abrego Garcia could remain in the U.S. because “it was more likely than not” he would be subjected to gang violence if deported.

On X, Congressman Andy Harris, a Trump ally and the lone Republican in the Maryland congressional delegation, said that returning Abrego Garcia, whom he called an “already deported illegal alien criminal,” to the U.S. is “a waste of hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” implying that he will be deported again after he stands trial.

Maryland Democrats said that Abrego Garcia’s return, despite under criminal charges, was a victory.

In a statement Friday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who first traveled to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia, said that the Trump administration has “finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights.”

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” Van Hollen said. “The administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia should not have been deported,” U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, said. “Even the Supreme Court demanded this President follow the law and return him to the U.S. It is right that due process will be afforded to him.”

In an interview Friday on CNN, Maryland U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin said he did not know any Democrats who’ve defended Abrego Garcia’s conduct because to this point, he has not been charged with a crime.

However, Raskin said since his deportation, Abrego Garcia has been entitled to a proper court procedure.

“It’s not a moral question, it’s a legal question,” the Montgomery County Democrat said. To accentuate his point, Raskin compared Abrego Garcia’s case to Trump’s criminal prosecution last year in New York. “He had every element of due process along the way,” Raskin said of the president.

Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, who also traveled to El Salvador to see Abrego Garcia but was denied access, said in a CNN interview Friday that the Maryland father’s return was likely due to the White House “getting a lot of heat” about his case.

“It’s good they could bring him back, and hopefully they’ll bring back the other 250 plus Venezuelans and others who are in this odd status of deportation, even though they haven’t done anything or been convicted of any criminal activity,” said Ivey, who represents the Maryland district where Abrego Garcia resides.

Shortly after the indictment was unsealed, the Justice Department asked for Xinis to dissolve a preliminary injunction ordering Abrego Garcia’s return, adding that the “underlying case should be dismissed.”

In that case, Xinis recently permitted the plaintiffs to seek sanctions against the U.S. government. She had not made any new rulings as of Friday afternoon.

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(Baltimore Sun reporters Hannah Gaskill, Luke Parker and Ben Mause contributed to this story.)

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