{"id":152519,"date":"2025-06-07T12:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T12:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/recap-kilmar-abrego-garcia-charged-with-human-smuggling-after-return-from-el-salvador-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T12:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T12:32:16","slug":"recap-kilmar-abrego-garcia-charged-with-human-smuggling-after-return-from-el-salvador-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/recap-kilmar-abrego-garcia-charged-with-human-smuggling-after-return-from-el-salvador-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap: Kilmar Abrego Garcia charged with human smuggling after return from El Salvador – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kilmar Abrego Garcia,<\/a> the Maryland man whose deportation to El Salvador<\/a> made him a flashpoint in the debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, faces human trafficking charges after he was returned to the United States, Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> said.
Abrego Garcia made more than 100 trips to move illegal immigrants across the United States, Bondi said at a June 6 press conference, alleging he was a member of the MS-13 street gang.\u00a0“Thousands of illegal aliens were smuggled,” she said.
The indictment was a dramatic turnabout for Abrego Garcia’s supporters, who have portrayed him as an innocent man turned political pawn amid Trump’s mass deportation program.
To the contrary, Bondi said, Abrego Garcia “traded the innocence of minor children for profit.”
President Donald Trump refused to comment to reporters traveling with him June 6 about whether he pressed Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele<\/a> to return Abrego Garcia. But Trump continued to argue he shouldn\u2019t have been returned.
\u201cHe should\u2019ve never had to be returned,\u201d Trump said. \u201cEither way it\u2019s a total disaster \u2013 this is a pretty bad guy.\u201d
But Trump said the Justice Department made a decision \u201cto bring him back, show everybody how horrible this guy is.\u201d
\u201cThe man has a horrible past, and I can see a decision being made,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI could see it either way, bringing him back or not bringing him back but bringing him back you can show how bad he is. He\u2019s a bad guy.\u201d
-Francesca Chambers, Bart Jansen<\/em><\/strong>
Savadoran President Nayib Bukele<\/a> said on social media he sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. at the Trump administration’s “request.” His explanation came after the administration spent weeks telling judges it could not compel Abrego Garcia’s return.
Bukele himself, in an April meeting in the Oval Office, appeared to close the door on Abrego Garcia’s departure from prison in El Salvador.
“As I said in the Oval Office: 1. I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States. 2. \u2060I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador,” Bukele explained on X<\/a> after Abrego Garcia landed in the U.S. “That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn\u2019t refuse.”
Ben Schrader, a former assistant U.S. attorney who headed the criminal division in the middle district of Tennessee, resigned after Garcia\u2019s indictment<\/a> without specifying the reason for his departure.
\u201cEarlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee,\u201d Schrader posted on social media. \u201cIt has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.\u201d
ABC News reported Schrader quit over concerns the case against Garcia was being pursued for political reasons<\/a>. The May 21 indictment was insealed in Nashville on June 6.
-Bart Jansen<\/em><\/strong>
Advocates and attorneys for Abrego Garcia said they do not know if he is aware of the charges against him and urged the government to allow him to communicate with his lawyers and family.
\u201cKilmar is back. As the fight for Kilmar continues \u2212 the fight for justice, for his actual release,” said Ama Frimpong, legal director of the CASA immigration rights organization. “Let him talk to his wife, let him talk to his children; his family has suffered enough.\u201d
\u201cWe will be looking forward to Kilmar getting a fair trial, because he certainly has not gotten a fair trial in the court of public opinion,\u201d said Chris Newman, Legal Director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network Newman.
-Will Carless<\/em><\/strong>
On March 15, Abrego Garcia was flown with a group of hundreds of prisoners to El Salvador, where most were locked in the country\u2019s infamous maximum security prison, known as \u201cCECOT.\u201d The Trump administration said the deportees, originally from El Salvador and Venezuela, were members of gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, though most had not been charged with crimes in the U.S.
On March 25, Abrego Garcia\u2019s family filed a lawsuit challenging his removal. Days later, on March 31, the government acknowledged an \u201cadministrative error\u201d in removing him.\u00a0
The Maryland sheet metal worker, an undocumented immigrant, became the poster boy for what critics called Trump’s assault on due process rights.
On April 10, a unanimous Supreme Court<\/a> ordered the administration to \u201cfacilitate\u201d Abrego Garcia’s return<\/a> to the United States. Administration officials claimed they couldn\u2019t force a sovereign nation \u2212 El Salvador \u2212 to relinquish a prisoner, and that Abrego Garcia was a violent and dangerous criminal who shouldn\u2019t be allowed back.
Meanwhile, a succession of Democratic members of Congress, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) travelled to El Salvador to demand Abrego Garcia\u2019s return, citing his due process rights. Those efforts appeared fruitless until news broke June 6 that Abrego Garcia was back in the U.S. to face human trafficking charges.
\u201cThis was his full time job. Not a contractor,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said. “He was a smuggler of humans and children and women.\u201d
-Will Carless<\/em><\/strong>
After Bondi’s press conference June 6, Justice Department attorneys filed a request to pause all deadlines in the federal civil case handled by Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
“Considering this development, the Court’s preliminary injunction should be dissolved, and the underlying case should be dismissed as moot,” the government requested.
DOJ said it would move next to dismiss the case, which reached the Supreme Court.
-Nick Penzenstadler<\/em><\/strong>
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a> blasted the news media and Democrats for \u201cglorifying\u201d Garcia.
She said in a post on social media the government has \u201coverwhelming evidence<\/a>\u201d against him for charges of human smuggling and conspiracy.
\u201cJustice awaits this Salvadoran man,\u201d Noem said.
-Bart Jansen<\/em><\/strong>
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, who visited Garcia in an El Salvador prison, said in a statement the Trump administration will have to make its case in a court of law \u2212 as it should have all along.
\u201cFor months the Trump administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,\u201d Van Hollen said. \u201cToday 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.\u201d
-Bart Jansen<\/em><\/strong>
\u201cThe government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order. Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they\u2019re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said.
“Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice,\u201d Sandoval-Moshenberg said. \u201cThe government should give him a full and fair trial in front of the same immigration judge who heard the case in 2019.”
A 2019 court order by an immigration judge barred Abrego Garcia’s deportation to his native country over concerns for his safety.
-Will Carless<\/em><\/strong>
Bondi told reporters a co-conspirator of Abrego Garcia’s had claimed he abused undocumented women, that he solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor, and that he “played a role” in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother.
Abrego Garcia was indicted on two charges of unlawful transport of undocumented immigrants for financial gain.\u00a0
-Will Carless<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia also transported narcotics on more than 100 trips between Texas and Maryland. He also smuggled minors, court documents allege.
\u201cAbrego Garcia\u2026 transported undocumented aliens in an unsafe manner, including using reconfigured vehicles with after-market unattached seating rows, and they transported children on the floorboards of vehicles in order to maximize profits,\u201d the indictment alleges.
-Nick Penzenstadler<\/em><\/strong>
Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega prison on March 15 in a move officials would later call an administrative “error.” A 2019 court order barred his deportation to his native country due to security concerns.
Abrego Garcia will face federal human trafficking charges after a two-count indictment was filled in Tennessee in May.
“We should treat any of these charges with a high degree of suspicion and he should get a fair hearing in court because he isn\u2019t getting one in the court of public opinion,\u201d said Chris Newman, Legal Director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which represents Abrego Garcia\u2019s family.
Newman and Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Maryland, recently attempted to meet with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and were denied access. Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, met with Abrego Garcia briefly in El Salvador.
“For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,” Van Hollen said in statement issued June 6. “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. As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it\u2019s about his constitutional rights \u2013 and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.\u201d
A federal grand jury handed down the indictment on May 21 in Nashville, according to court records. The indictment was sealed until government lawyers filed to open it on Friday, June 6.
“From in or around 2016 through in or around 2025, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garica and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere,” the indictment reads. “Ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia is a member and associate of the MS-13 gang, a claim his family has denied.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia also transported firearms illegally purchased in Texas for distribution and resale in Maryland. It alleges Abrego Garcia would take undocumented immigrants’ cell phones while being transported to ensure they would not contact anyone during the trip.
If convicted, Abrego Garcia would face 10 years in U.S. prison and a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose deportation to El Salvador made him a flashpoint in the debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, faces human trafficking charges after he was returned to the United States, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.Abrego Garcia made more than 100 trips to move illegal immigrants across the United States, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}