A man whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador became a political flashpoint in Donald Trump’s stepped-up immigration enforcement blitz has been returned to the US to face prosecution on two federal criminal charges.
Kilmar Ábrego García, 29, is accused of a large human smuggling operation that brought immigrants from Texas into other parts of America illegally.
El Salvador agreed to abruptly release Ábrego García after the US presented it with an arrest warrant, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday.
His lawyer called the charges “baseless”.
The move closes one chapter and opens another in a saga that yielded a remarkable stand-off since March between the Trump administration and the courts,
Officials initially acknowledged it was done in error but then continued to defy orders by judges to facilitate his return.
Authorities presented the country’s president Nayib Bukele with federal charges in Tennessee accusing Ábrego García of playing a key role in an alleged trafficking gang in return for money.
He is expected to be prosecuted in America and, if convicted, will be sent back to his home country at the conclusion of the case.
“This is what American justice looks like,” Bondi said announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment.
His attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg hit back: “There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy.”
Federal magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville determined Ábrego García will be held in custody until at least next week when there will be an arraignment and detention hearing.
The defendant appeared in court wearing a short-sleeved, white, button-down shirt.
When asked if he understood the charges, he told the judge: “Sí. Lo entiendo.”
An interpreter then said: “Yes. I understand.”
US President Donald Trump called Ábrego García a “bad guy” while speaking to reporters on Air Force One.
He said the Department of Justice had made the right decision to return him to face trial.
Ábrego García entered America illegally as a teenager from El Salvador. In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
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But an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.
On March 15, Ábrego García was deported amid an immigration crackdown and taken to the brutal Cecot mega-prison.