More than two months after Donald Trump’s administration was ordered to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the wrongfully deported Salvadoran father is reportedly on his way back to the United States.
The government has spent weeks battling court orders for his return after admitting he was deported in error, but the 29-year-old Maryland father is now facing a federal grand jury indictment for allegedly illegally transporting undocumented immigrants, according to ABC News.
A two-count indictment filed under seal in federal court in Tennessee reportedly accuses Abrego Garcia of participating in a conspiracy to traffic undocumented immigrants from Texas.
Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager in 2011 and was working as a sheet-metal apprentice in Maryland, where he has been living with his wife and 5-year-old child, both U.S. citizens. The couple is also raising two other children from a previous relationship.
After a traffic stop in March, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and then deported to El Salvador’s brutal Terrorism Confinement Center despite an immigration court judge’s 2019 order withholding his removal from the country for humanitarian reasons. Abrego Garcia was later moved to another prison for non-gang members. He has been imprisoned in the country for nearly three months.
Trump’s allies and administration officials have repeatedly sought to justify his detention over allegations of criminal activity and MS-13 gang membership, which were raised only after he was summarily deported. Democrats and legal analysts have argued the administration could simply return Abrego Garcia and then use that alleged evidence against him in normal immigration court removal hearings.
Instead, Justice Department lawyers and Trump administration officials clashed with federal judges and raised a “state secrets” privilege to avoid answering a judge’s questions about the government’s relationship with El Salvador and conversations about his detention there.
This is a developing story
