A migrant man who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador is returning to the US.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, aged 29, is returning to the United States to confront charges related to allegedly helping transport undocumented migrants within the country, according to ABC News.
The Trump administration had initially acknowledged it erred in deporting Abrego Garcia, a father of three who entered the US unlawfully over ten years ago.
During Donald Trump’s stringent border control measures, Abrego Garcia was sent back to El Salvador, his country of origin, even though an immigration judge had decided against his deportation due to threats from gangs.
The Maryland resident had several brushes with the law in the US over the years, although none resulted in arrest or conviction.
However the Trump administration maintained that he was a member of the notorious MS-13 gang.
In 2022, Abrego Garcia was pulled over by a Tennessee state patrol officer who suspected him of human trafficking but let him go without arrest. The migrant now faces charges stemming from that incident.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen here in this handout image
In this undated photo provided by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, a man identified by Jennifer Vasquez Sura as her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is led by force by guards through the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador
A federal grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia over claims he participated in a years long operation trafficking people through the Texas border.
Sources told the outlet that amongst those allegedly transported were members of the infamous Salvadoran gang MS-13.
The conspiracy is said to have spanned nearly ten years and involved the transportation of thousands of migrants from Mexico and Central America.
Abrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison after the administration claimed he was a member of MS-13. Something he and his family have denied.
The investigation into the charges started after federal authorities started probing a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, source said.
He was stopped with eight people in his car and told officers he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for a construction job.
The exchange led the officer to, ‘suspect this was a human trafficking incident’, according to a report produced at the time.
But Abrego Garcia was let go with out any arrest or charge, despite having an expired license, per the document.
The investigation into the charges started after federal authorities started probing a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol
President Donald Trump had repeatedly maintained in an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran that Abrego Garcia has M-S-1-3 tattooed on his hand
President Donald Trump had repeatedly maintained in an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran that Abrego Garcia has M-S-1-3 tattooed on his hand.
Trump had posted multiple times showing knuckle tattoos, but Moran told him the actual M-S-1-3 letters and numbers had simply been photoshopped onto the image above Abrego Garcia’s actual tattoos as a code to decipher them.
His deportation saga began when he was pulled over by immigration officers on March 12 and was told his immigration status had changed.
Within days he was on a plane to El Salvador and his family recognized him in CECOT from media images which showed off distinctive tattoos on his arm.
Abrego Garcia was granted ‘withholding of removal’ status in 2019 after a judge determined his claims that he would be persecuted if he returned to El Salvador were legitimate.
President Trump had said that he could retrieve Abrego Garcia with one phone call to El Salvador’s president, but refused to do it.
Abrego Garcia´s American wife sued over his deportation, and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered his return on April 4.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.
Late last month the administration asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction because he was no longer in the US.
Attorneys for the administration have also argued that information about returning Abrego Garcia is protected under state secrets privilege.
U.S. attorneys said releasing such details in open court – or even to the judge in private – would jeopardize national security by revealing sensitive diplomatic negotiations. Many filings in the case have been sealed.
The case has raised questions about whether due process was followed and highlighted the extent to which the White House is trying to exert control over the courts to bolster its immigration policy.
In a statement about his return, Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said: ‘From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time.
‘Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life. We’re not just fighting for Kilmar – we’re fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone.
‘Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us — if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution.’
