Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to the US and faces federal accusations
A Maryland man who was mistakenly deported has been accused of making more than 100 trips to move illegal immigrants across the country.
Attorney General Pam Bondy announced the charges against Kilmer Abrego Garcia on April 6th.
Bondy made the announcement minutes later after a federal court in Tennessee charged with “transporting illegal aliens for financial interests” and transporting conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. She said the incident has been going on for many years and includes women, children and members of violent gangs.
The accusations are the latest twist in the man’s story of an inappropriate deporter to a Salvador prison that sparked a controversy over deportation without justification under President Donald Trump’s administration. For months, several courts had ordered the government to promote the return of Abrego Garcia. On the same day, the government took Abrego Garcia to the US and faced them, as the charges were not sealed.
“In the last nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a key role in alien smuggling rings,” Bondy said. “They discovered this was his full-time job and not a contractor. He was a human, child and female smuggler.”
Simon Sandoval Moschenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, criticized the Justice Department for bringing these charges after sending him to a foreign prison in violation of court orders.
The indictment against Abrego Garcia, originally filed on Seal on May 21, claims that he and his unnamed co-conspirators plan to put aftermarket seats in their cars in their cars in order to fit six to ten immigrants inside the car. According to the accusations, children are placed on floorboards to maximize space and profits.
The indictment is a formal charge of a crime. The US judicial system presumes Abrego Garcia is innocent unless prosecutors prove a court case or defendant pleads guilty.
Read the indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The indictment says Abrego Garcia and his co-conspirators were members of the cross-border gangster MS-13. They worked with people from other countries to transport immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico, then took people from Houston to Maryland, often changing their routes and came up with cover stories about construction if they were pulled.
Tennessee’s Highway Patrol stopped Abrego Garcia driving a big SUV in 2022. There were nine Hispanic men in the car with him, as no one lined up seats in the cargo area, the charges stated. Abrego Garcia told the Troopers that he was engaged in construction in St. Louis but the car had no luggage or construction tools, and data from the charges showed the car was not nearby St. Louis, according to the indictment. He had $1,400 in his pocket, the indictment said.
One of the unnamed Abrego Garcia co-conspirators suspects was involved in transporting more than 150 migrants, “ends when the Mexico-overturned tractor trailers were overturned,” killing more than 50 people.
The indictment also states that Abrego Garcia often illegally bought a gun in Texas and took him to Maryland, but he was not charged with a weapons charge.
At a press conference, Bondi filed additional claims about Abrego Garcia. She allegedly abused an undocumented woman, claiming she had “played a role” in the murder of the mother of a rival gang member, seeking nude photos and videos of minors.
Abrego Garcia and his co-conspirators usually steered the people who transported their phones, the accusation was unable to contact anyone while they were on the trip and returned the phone when they reached their destination.
Abrego Garcia often brought relatives close to the car with him, the indictment says, but when he didn’t bring in his relatives, he “abused some of the undocumented aliens.” His conspirators reported the abuse and he was ordered to stop, the indictment said.
Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem assaulted on social media after the indictment, saying “media and Democrats were burned with the last piece of credibility that Kilmer Abrego Garcia has been left to praise known MS-13 gang members, human traffickers and serial domestic abusers.”
Abrego Garcia’s wife asked him for a protective order in 2020, and audio-visually said when he grabbed her by the hair and slapped her. The incident came out after the Department of Homeland Security released a copy of the 2021 restraining order petition cited multiple cases of abuse.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, framed a case on constitutional rights.
“For months, the Trump administration has downplayed the Supreme Court and our constitution,” Van Hollen said. “Today, they seem to have finally become lenient with our demands for court orders and due process rights given to everyone in the United States.”
If he is convicted, the maximum sentence for Abrego Garcia’s conspiracy charge is 10 years in prison, $250,000.
