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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador became a political flashpoint in the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement, was returned to the United States late Friday.
Upon return by federal authorities, Garcia was charged with orchestrating a massive human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the US illegally.
Officials said that he will be prosecuted in the US and, if convicted, will be returned to his home country in El Salvador after the case.
“This is what American justice looks like,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday, announcing Abrego Garcia’s return and the criminal charges.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on X, Garcia would “meet the full force of American justice.” She called him an “illegal alien, terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker.”
According to the US media, the charges stem from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him of human trafficking.
A report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in April states that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage, while they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver’s license, the DHS report said.
The report added that he was travelling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.
Abrego Garcia’s wife claimed in a statement following the report’s release in April that he occasionally drove groups of workers between construction sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle.”
“He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing”, she stressed.
The Trump administration has been publicising Abrego Garcia’s interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the US.
Authorities in Tennessee released video of a 2022 traffic stop last month. The body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Officers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were travelling without luggage. One of the officers said, “He’s hauling these people for money.” Another said he had $1,400 (€1,227) in an envelope.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the footage’s release in May that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage.
“But the point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Garcia’s return comes days after the Trump administration complied with a court order to return a Guatemalan man deported to Mexico despite his fears of being harmed there.
The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G., was the first person known to have been returned to US custody after deportation since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.