Salvadoran deported which is wrongly deported by Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been taken back to the United States where he will face criminal accusations for allegedly transporting migrants in the US
More than two months after Trump’s administration admitted that he wrongly deported Abrego Garcia from Maryland to his home country, El Salvador, the federal jury has been accommodating him for allegedly transporting migrants in the United States.
The two counts, which was submitted under the seal in the Federal Court in Tennessee last month and opened Friday, accused Abrego Garcia, 29, participated in a conspiracy for years to transport migrants from Document from Texas to the interior of the country.
The alleged conspiracy lasted almost a decade and involved domestic transportation of thousands of citizens from Mexico and Central America, including several children, in return for thousands of dollars, according to the indictment.
Abrego-Garcia is thought to have participated in more than 100 trips like that, according to the indictment. Among those suspected of being transported were members of the Salvador MS-13 gang, a source who was familiar with the investigation said.
Abrego-Garcia is the only member of the alleged conspiracy accused of the indictment.
The return to the US came after Trump’s recent administration said that they could not bring it back even though it was deported to the wrong.
The photo was not dated provided by Murray Osorio PLLC showing Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Murray Osorio PLLC via AP
Attorney General Pam Bondi, at the Friday afternoon press conference, thanked President Salvador Nayib Bikele for “Agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
“Our government gave El Salvador arrest warrant and they agreed to return it to our country,” Bondi said.
Bondi said that if Abrego Garcia was punished for the accusation, after completing his sentence, he would be deported back to his home country, El Salvador.
“Grand Jury found that for the past nine years, Abrego Garcia had played an important role in an alien smuggling ring,” Bondi said. “They found this was a full time work, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He did more than 100 trips, the jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia caused the sudden departure of Ben Schrader, a high -ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, a source given by Schrader’s decision to tell ABC News. Schrader’s resignation was driven by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the source said.
Schrader, who spent 15 years at the US lawyer’s office in Nashville and recently was the Head of the Criminal Division, did not respond to a message from ABC News who asked for a comment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche listened during a press conference about Kilmar Abrego Garcia at the Department of Justice, June 6, 2025, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
In a statement to ABC News, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer said that he would continue to struggle to ensure Abrego Garcia received a just trial.
“From the beginning, this case has made one thing clear: the government has the power to bring it back at any time. Conversely, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life,” said lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. “We are not only struggling for kilmar – we struggle to ensure that the right process is protected for everyone. Because tomorrow, this can be one of us – if we let power out of control, if we ignore our constitution.”
In a detention memo submitted on Friday afternoon in court in Tennessee, the Federal Prosecutor moved to have Abrego Garcia who was detained in pretrial detention “because he raised danger to the community and serious flight risks, and there were no conditions or combinations of conditions that would ensure the safety of the community or his appearance in court.”
The Federal Prosecutor, in the detention memo submitted this afternoon in Courts in Tennessee, had moved for pre-trust detention over Abrego Garcia, writing that “… the United States will ask that the defendant be detained in pretrial custody because he raises the danger to the community and the risk of serious flight, and there are no conditions or a combination of conditions that will ensure the safety of the community or his appearance in the court.
“If found guilty at the trial, the defendant faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for ‘each alien’ he was carrying,” said the Memo, “according to that, exposure to the defendant – remembering the number of aliens who did not document involved – exceeded the rest of the defendant’s life.”
Abrego Garcia, a native of Salvador who has lived with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to Cecot Mega-Prison from El Salvador-although the 2019 court orders prohibit deportation to the country for fear of persecution-after the Trump government claimed to be a member of the MS-13 crime gang. His wife and lawyer denied that he was a member of the MS-13.
The Department of Justice for Criminal The Criminal Demanding Abrego Garcia is the most aggressive step in administrative efforts to gather information that has the potential to burden the background of Abrego Garcia, following the Federal Judge’s command which requires the government to facilitate its return to the US to be given a process in deportation.
Trump’s government has recognized in the submission of a court that the transfer of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March was wrong, because it violated the US Immigration Court orders in 2019 which protected Abrego Garcia from deportation to his home country, according to the immigration court record. An immigration judge has decided that Abrego Garcia is likely to face the persecution there by local gangs suspected of terrorizing him and his family.
The government argues, however, that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to the US because he is a member of the MS-13 transnational salvador gang, a claim that his family and lawyer rejected. In recent weeks, Trump administrative officials have published Abrego Garcia’s interaction with the police for years, despite the lack of appropriate criminal charges.
In March, the Abrego Garcia family filed a lawsuit on his deportation. US District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland finally ordered Trump’s administration to facilitate its return to the US, the US Supreme Court confirmed the decision on April 10.
Abrego Garcia was originally sent to the famous Cecot prison in El Salvador but was believed to be transferred to different facilities in the country.
Criminal investigations that caused the indictment to be launched in April when the federal authority began to examine the state of traffic termination 2022 from Abrego Garcia by Tennessee Highway Patrol, according to sources. Abrego Garcia was withdrawn for speeding with vehicles with eight passengers and told the police that they had worked construction in Missouri.
According to the body record of the body of the 2022 traffic stop, the Tennessee forces – after questioning Abrego Garcia – discussed among themselves their suspicion that Abrego Garcia might transport people to get money because nine people traveling without luggage, but Abrego Garcia was not ticketed or blessed.
The officers finally allowed Abrego Garcia to drive only by warnings about the SIM that had expired, according to a report on the dismissal released last month by the US Department of Domestic Security.
Asked what circumstances have changed since abrego garcia was not taken in custody during that traffic stop in tennessee, bondi replleated, “what has changed is donald trump is now president of the united state, and our borders are again. Shined on Abrego Garcia – This Investigation Continued with Actually Amazing Police Work, And We Were Able To Track This Case and Stop This International Smuggling Ring From Continuing. “
Asked by ABC News’ Pierre Thomas asked whether this should be seen as resolving a separate civil case in Maryland where a federal judge ordered the government to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “There is a big difference between the country because the return is Ancided before the indictment and after the indictment. Salvador.
As the first time ABC News reported last month, the Department of Justice was silent in investigating the termination of the Tnenesse traffic. As part of the investigation, the federal agent at the end of April visited the Federal Prison in Talladega, Alabama to question Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted criminal who was a registered owner of the Abrego Garcia vehicle which was driven when stopped at Intertate 40 to the east of Nashville, the sources who previously told ABC News. Hernandez-Reyes did not attend the traffic stop.
Hernandez-Reyes, 38, is currently serving a 30-month sentence because it illegally returns to the US after a sentence of previous crimes for illegal alien transportation.
After being given limited immunity, Hernandez-Reyes allegedly told investigators that he previously operated “taxi service” based in Baltimore. He claimed to have met Abrego Garcia around 2015 and claimed to have employed him on several occasions to transport migrants to not document from Texas to various locations in the United States, Sumber told ABC News.
When the Tennessee Traffic Dismissal Details were first published, Abrego Garcia’s wife said her husband sometimes transported fellow construction workers among the work sites.
“Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to claims,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid -April.
Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, who flew to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia shortly after his deportation, said on Friday that the Trump government “succumbed” about his return.
“After months of ignoring our constitution, it seems that the admin of Trump has relented our demands to compliance with court orders and legal processes for Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen posted on X. “This was never about that man – this was about his constitutional rights & all rights. “
Abrego Garcia entered the US illegally as a teenager in 2012, according to court records. He has lived in Maryland for the past 13 years, and married Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, in 2019. The couple has one child together.
ABC News’ Laura Romero contributed to this report.