A Friday report claimed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the citizen of El Salvador deported in March by the Trump administration, is being returned to the United States in order to face criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for transporting illegal immigrants throughout the interior of the country.
Abrego Garcia became the subject of national controversy after a government lawyer claimed that he was mistakenly deported in violation of a 2019 final deportation order that included a withholding of removal order for one of two countries, either El Salvador or Guatemala, leading the U.S. Supreme Court to require the Trump administration “facilitate” his return to the United States.
Amid weeks of Trump administration officials insisting Abrego Garcia, who was living illegally in Maryland prior to his removal, will never be allowed to return to normal life in the United States, the ABC News report claimed that Abrego Garcia was headed back to the country on Friday, so that he might “face criminal charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S.”
The news outlet cited a two-count indictment filed in Tennessee last month, where The Tennessee Star was first to report that Abrego Garcia was suspected of human trafficking by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) after he was stopped while driving a vehicle occupied by nine individuals who spoke little English in November 2022.
The Star was also first to report the “Biden-era FBI” instructed troopers to release Abrego Garcia, who was driving with an expired form of a Maryland driver’s license that only authorized illegal immigrants to drive within the borders of that state.
According to the outlet, citing sources familiar with the indictment, Abrego Garcia is accused of participating “in a years long conspiracy to haul undocumented immigrants from Texas to the interior of the country,” including “thousands of non-citizens, including some children.”
Specifically, Abrego Garcia is accused of transporting some members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). He has previously denied being part of the Central American gang.
News of the indictment against Abrego Garcia, and his reported return to the country, notably comes after DOJ officials began investigating Abrego Garcia last month, and after they recently interviewed Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, the owner of the vehicle driven by Abrego Garcia in 2022.
Hernandez Reyes was convicted of human smuggling in 2020, and following his release from prison, Hernandez Reyes was deported, but reentered the country illegally in violation of the terms of his release. Federal officials reportedly caught up with him at a federal prison in Alabama, where he was reportedly offered limited immunity last month, leading the convicted human smuggler to reportedly confirm employing Abrego Garcia to transport illegal immigrants.
Read the indictment:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
the democrat poster boy!
this is rich.