Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned to the U.S. to face federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee, the Justice Department said Friday, in a case that became emblematic of the combined coarseness and incompetence behind the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The Maryland resident, who was illegally deported to El Salvador in March, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gains and the unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gains, according to a copy of the indictment obtained by NBC News. ABC News first reported the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang and took part in a multiyear conspiracy to move people from Texas deeper into the country:
[Abrego Garcia] used his status in MS-13 to further his criminal activity. Over the course of the conspiracy, the co-conspirators knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates. The co-conspirators also worked with transnational criminal organizations in Mexico to transport undocumented aliens through Mexico and into the United States.
Defense attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement that bringing Abrego Garcia back for prosecution “is an abuse of power, not justice.”
“The government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him. This shows that they were playing games with the court all along. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after.”
A judge in 2019 had ordered Abrego Garcia not to be removed to El Salvador, due to the potential persecution the Salvadoran native could face there.
Nonetheless, in March, federal officials detained Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, and flew him and others to a notorious prison in El Salvador, where he and others have been held without having been convicted of, or charged with, any crime. (Others have brought separate litigation.)
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to facilitate his return, and the Supreme Court largely upheld her order on April 10, ruling that it “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” The justices noted that the government said his removal to that country “was the result of an ‘administrative error.’”
Yet, the government still resisted returning him. During further litigation before Xinis after the Supreme Court ruling, the Obama-appointed judge criticized officials’ “continued mischaracterization” of the high court command, accusing them of acting in “bad faith.”
The government has argued that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which it has deemed a foreign terrorist organization. Addressing that accusation during the litigation, Reagan-appointed appellate Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote, “Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.”
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