Washington (AP) – Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose erroneous deportation to El Salvador has become A political flash point in the application of the Trump administration immigrationOn Friday, was sent back to the United States to face criminal charges related to what the Trump administration said a great human smuggling operation that illegally brought immigrants to the country.
His sudden release of El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in a saga which gave a remarkable confrontation and one month between the officials of Trump and the courts for an expulsion that the officials initially recognized were carried out in error, but then continued to stand up in an apparent contempt of the orders by the judges to facilitate his return to the United States in the United States in the United States
Development occurred after American officials presented to the president of Salvador of El Le Salvador, Nayib Bukele, an arrest warrant against federal accusations in Tennessee accusing Abrego Garcia To play a key role in the smuggling of immigrants in the country for money. He should be prosecuted in the United States and, if he is convicted, will be returned to his country of origin of El Salvador at the end of the case, officials announced on Friday.
“This is what American justice is like,” said Prosecutor General Pam Bondi by announcing the return of Abrego Garcia and the non-delicacation of an indictment of the Grand Jury.
ABREGO GARCIA’s lawyers qualified the case as “baseless”.
“There is no way that a jury can see the evidence and should be that this sheet of employment is the head of an international contraband of MS-13 smuggling,” said lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.
Federal magistrate Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee, determined that Greo Garcia will be held in detention until at least next Friday, when there is an audience for indictment and detention.
Abrego Garcia appeared before the court with a short -sleeved shirt and white sleeves. When asked if he understood the accusations, he said to the judge, “Sí. Lo Eniendo.” An interpreter then said, “Yes. I understand.”
The democrats and the rights of immigrants had put pressure for the release of Abrego Garcia, with several legislators – including Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, where Abrego Garcia had lived for years – even going to El Salvador to visit him. A federal judge had ordered him to have returned in April and the The Supreme Court rejected an emergency call By ordering the government to work to bring it back.
But the news that Garcia, who had an order from the immigration court preventing his expulsion to his native country, feared to face the persecution of local gangs, was brought back to the purposes of the prosecution was greeted with dismay by his lawyers.
The case also resulted in the resignation of a high supervisor from the American prosecutor’s office in Nashville, according to a person familiar with the question that spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel case.
Ben Schrader, who was head of the office’s criminal division, did not explain the reason for his resignation but was published on social networks when the indictment was transmitted, saying: “It was an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Ministry of Justice, where the only work description I have ever known is to do the right thing, for the right way.”
He refused to comment when he was reached by the Associated Press on Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer calls “absurd” charges
“This administration … Instead of simply admitting their error, they will not stop at anything, including some of the most absurd accusations,” said Sandoval-Moshenberg.
Ama Frimpong, legal director of the Casa group, said that Abrego Garcia’s family has mixed emotions on their return to the United States
“Let him talk to his wife. Let him talk to her children. This family has suffered enough, “she said.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said that Garcia is one of the first, if not the first, the person released from a notorious prison in Salvador, although he was then imprisoned in another establishment.
“It will therefore be very interesting to hear what to say about how he was treated,” said the lawyer.
The accusation act, tabled last month and not sealed on Friday, presents a series of allegations which date back to 2016, but are only disclosed now, almost three months after Abrego Garcia has been varying and following the repeated allegations of the Trump administration that he is a criminal.
This accuses him of illegally passing thousands of people living in the country, including children and members of the violent Gang MS-13, from Central America and abusing women he transported. A co-conspirator also allegedly alleged that he had participated in the murder of the mother of a gang member in Salvador, prosecutors wrote in newspapers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while waiting for his trial.
The indictment does not invoice it within the framework of this allegation.
“Later, as part of his immigration procedure in the United States, the accused said he could not return to El Salvador because he was afraid of the 18th street gang,” said the detention memo.
“Although partially true – the defendant, according to information received by the government, was in fear of reprisals by the gang of the 18th rue – the underlying reason for reprisals was the defendant’s own actions to participate in the murder of a mother of the 18th rue du 18e Rue,” wrote the prosecutors.
The accusations arise from a vehicle stop in 2022 in which the Tennessee road patrol suspected him from the trafficking of human beings. A report published by the Ministry of Homeland Security in April indicates that none of the vehicle people had luggage, when they entered the same address as Garcia Garcia.
Abrego Garcia has never been accused of a crime, while the police allowed him to drive with only a warning concerning an expired driving license, according to the DHS report. The report indicates that he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring people to carry out construction work.
In response to the release of the report in April, Abrego Garcia’s wife said in a press release that he sometimes transported groups of workers between employment sites: “It is therefore completely plausible that he would have been arrested by driving with others in the vehicle. He has not been accused of a crime or quoted for any reprehensible act. ”
Defenders of immigrant rights against the Trump administration
The history and personal life of Abrego Garcia were a source of dispute and disputed facts. The defenders of the rights of immigrants expressed his arrest as emblematic of an administration whose expulsion policy is random and subject to errors, while Trump officials underlined the previous interactions with the police and described him as a member of a gang which corresponds to the mold that they are determined to expel from the country.
Abrego Garcia Lived in the United States For about 14 years, during which he worked the construction, married and raised three disabled children, according to the judicial archives. Trump administration officials said he was expelled on the basis of a 2019 Maryland police accusation that he was a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia denied this allegation and has never been accused of a crime, said his lawyers.
An American immigration judge then protected Abrego Garcia from expulsion in El Salvador because he probably faced the persecution by local gangs. The Trump administration expelled it there in March, later describe the error Like “an administrative error” but insisting that he was in MS-13.
Even if Abrego Garcia is found guilty of the accusations announced on Friday, the Trump administration should still return to an American immigration court if he wanted to deport him to Salvador, said Sandoval-Moshenberg. He also expects the case in Maryland to continue while the federal judge there examines if the administration has obeyed his orders to return it.
The return of Abrego Garcia comes a few days after the Trump administration respected a court order for Return a Guatemalan man Expelled in Mexico despite his fears of being injured there. The man, identified in court documents as OCG, was the first known first person to have been returned to the American guard after the expulsion since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
___
The journalist of Associated Press Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
