Mistakenly deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to the US to face charges
The case became a lightning rod for criticism of Trump’s immigration policies after Abrego Garcia was wrongly sent to El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, was flown back to the United States to face criminal charges of transporting illegal immigrants within the US, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday.
His return marked an inflection point in a case seized on by critics of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown as a sign that the administration was disregarding civil liberties in its push to step up deportations.
Abrego Garcia – a 29-year-old Salvadorean whose wife and young child in Maryland are US citizens – appeared in federal court in Nashville on Friday evening.
His arraignment was set for June 13, when he will enter a plea, according to local media reports. Until then, he will remain in federal custody.
If convicted, he would be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence, Bondi said. The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation that his lawyers deny.
Officials on Friday portrayed the indictment of Abrego Garcia by a federal grand jury in Tennessee as vindication of their approach to immigration enforcement.