Kilmar Ábrego García, a 29-year-old El Salvadorian man who was wrongly deported in March, has been returned to the United States to face two federal criminal charges. He allegedly participated in a human trafficking conspiracy that transported individuals from Texas to other parts of the country.
El Salvador agreed to release Mr. Ábrego García after the US presented them with an arrest warrant, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi. However, his lawyer has labeled the charges as “preposterous.” The White House initially resisted a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return, and he was sent to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador along with over 250 other deportees.
In a grand jury indictment filed in a Tennessee court last month, Mr. Ábrego García is accused of conspiring to transport and unlawfully transporting undocumented aliens. The charges are related to his alleged involvement in a human smuggling ring that brought thousands of immigrants to the US. He is also accused of transporting members of the MS-13 gang and trafficking weapons and narcotics.
Mr. Ábrego García’s lawyers argue that he has never been convicted of any criminal offense, including gang membership, in the US or El Salvador. Simon Sandoval Moshenberg, one of his attorneys, called the charges “preposterous” and described it as an abuse of power. He also accused the government of violating a court order by deporting Mr. Ábrego García.
Mr. Ábrego García entered the US as an undocumented teenager from El Salvador. In 2019, he was arrested and detained by immigration authorities, but an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation. However, he was deported in March amid an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration using the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that allows
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v7ynv98r8o
