Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, has been brought back to the United States to face federal charges related to human smuggling, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday.
His return reignites public scrutiny over former President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics, which critics say frequently overstepped legal boundaries and compromised civil rights in the rush to deport.
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national with a U.S. citizen wife andchild residing in Maryland, made his initial court appearance in Nashville on Friday evening. A formal plea hearing has been scheduled for June 13, and he will remain in federal custody until then.
If convicted, authorities said, he will serve his sentence in the U.S. and then be deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration has previously accused Abrego Garcia of MS-13 gang affiliation, though his defense attorneys strongly contest that claim.
Federal prosecutors in Tennessee presented his indictment as evidence that the administration’s immigration policies were justified. Speaking from Air Force One, Trump remarked, “He has a terrible past. Bringing him back was about showing how dangerous he is.” He added that the decision to return Abrego Garcia was made by the Department of Justice.
The indictment outlines Abrego Garcia's alleged involvement in a large human-smuggling network that transported undocumented migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to various states across the country. He is accused of making over 100 trips from Texas to Maryland between 2016 and 2025. Prosecutors also claim he trafficked weapons and narcotics as part of the operation.
The charges further allege that one of his co-conspirators was linked to a deadly migrant transport incident in Mexico in 2021, where a tractor-trailer carrying migrants overturned, killing 50 people.
However, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, dismissed the government’s case as exaggerated and based on unreliable testimonies. “These accusations are a mix of sensational claims stitched together by individuals who are themselves facing prosecution or already in prison,” he said. “What incentives were they offered to talk?”
The case has even triggered dissent within the Justice Department. Ben Schrader, the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Tennessee, reportedly resigned in protest over Abrego Garcia’s indictment. Sources said Schrader, a 15-year veteran, had become increasingly disillusioned with the administration’s aggressive tactics and viewed this case as the tipping point. Schrader declined to comment publicly.