The Salvadoran illegal immigrant is accused of human trafficking.
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 June 6, 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 accident 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 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.”
Matthew Vadum contributed to this report.
By Bill Pan
