A man who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador is returning to the US.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, is set to make his return to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants around the US, ABC News reported.
The Trump administration initially accepted it had made a mistake in deporting Abrego Garcia, a father-of-three who arrived in the US more than a decade ago.
A federal grand jury has indicted him over the charges, the outlet reported, alleging he participated in a years-long conspiracy to move migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.
Sources told the outlet that amongst those allegedly transported were members of the infamous Salvadoran gang MS-13.
The conspiracy is said to have spanned nearly ten years and involved the transportation of thousands of migrants from Mexico and Central America.
Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison after the administration claimed he was a member of MS-13. Something he and his family have denied.
The investigation into the charges started after federal authorities started probing a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, source said.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen here in this handout image
In this undated photo provided by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, a man identified by Jennifer Vasquez Sura as her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is led by force by guards through the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador
He was stopped with eight people in his car and told officers he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for a construction job.
The exchange led the officer to, ‘suspect this was a human trafficking incident’, according to the report.
But Abrego Garcia was let go with out any arrest or charge, despite having an expired license, per the document.
President Donald Trump had repeatedly maintained in an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran that Abrego Garcia has M-S-1-3 tattooed on his hand.
Trump had posted multiple times showing knuckle tattoos, but Moran told him the actual M-S-1-3 letters and numbers had simply been photoshopped onto the image above Abrego Garcia’s actual tattoos as a code to decipher them.
His deportation saga began when he was pulled over by immigration officers on March 12 and was told his immigration status had changed.
Within days he was on a plane to El Salvador and his family recognized him in CECOT from media images which showed off distinctive tattoos on his arm.
Abrego Garcia was granted ‘withholding of removal’ status in 2019 after a judge determined his claims that he would be persecuted if he returned to El Salvador were legitimate.
The investigation into the charges started after federal authorities started probing a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol
President Donald Trump had repeatedly maintained in an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran that Abrego Garcia has M-S-1-3 tattooed on his hand
President Trump had said that he could retrieve Abrego Garcia with one phone call to El Salvador’s president, but refused to do it over – maintaining he is a gangster.
Abrego Garcia´s American wife sued over his deportation, and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered his return on April 4.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.
Late last month the administration asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction because he was no longer in the US.
Attorneys for the administration have also argued that information about returning Abrego Garcia is protected under state secrets privilege.
U.S. attorneys said releasing such details in open court – or even to the judge in private – would jeopardize national security by revealing sensitive diplomatic negotiations. Many filings in the case have been sealed.
The case has raised questions about whether due process was followed and highlighted the extent to which the White House is trying to exert control over the courts to bolster its immigration policy.
In a statement about his return, Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said: ‘From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time.
‘Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life. We’re not just fighting for Kilmar – we’re fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone.
‘Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us — if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution.’