WASHINGTON: The Salvadoran migrant at the heart of a row over President Donald Trump’s hardline deportation policies was returned to the United States on Friday and arrested on human smuggling charges, officials said.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States from El Salvador and immediately arrested on charges of trafficking undocumented migrants into the country, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,“ Bondi said at a press conference.
The US Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia after he was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador.
But Bondi insisted to reporters that his return to the United States resulted from an arrest warrant presented to the Salvadoran authorities.
“We’re grateful to (Salvadoran) President (Nayib) Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges,“ she said.
In a post on X, Bukele said “we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse.”
White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said Abrego Garcia’s return “has nothing to do with his original deportation.”
“There was no mistake,“ Jackson said on X. “He’s returning because a new investigation has revealed crimes SO HEINOUS, committed in the US, that only the American Justice System could hold him fully accountable.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, was living in the eastern state of Maryland until he became one of more than 200 people sent to a prison in El Salvador as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Most of the migrants who were summarily deported were alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has declared a foreign terrorist organization.
– ‘Administrative error’ –
Justice Department lawyers later admitted that Abrego Garcia — who is married to a US citizen — was wrongly deported due to an “administrative error.”
Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.
Bondi alleged that Abrego Garcia had “played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring” and was a smuggler of “children and women” as well as members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.
“This defendant trafficked firearms and narcotics throughout our country on multiple occasions,“ she said.
Bondi said that Abrego Garcia, who was indicted by a grand jury in Tennessee, would be returned to El Salvador upon completion of any prison sentence.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen visited Abrego Garcia in April at the prison where he was being held in El Salvador and welcomed his return to the United States.
“For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,“ the senator from Maryland said in a statement.
“Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,“ he said.
“The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia was involved in smuggling undocumented migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries into the United States between 2016 and earlier this year.
