The Legal and Political Battle Over Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Deportation

06 Jun 2025, 22:27 by Chantelle Lee, Rebecca Schneid · TIME

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to an El Salvadoran prison in March, has been returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the transportation of undocumented immigrants, according to a federal indictment that was unsealed on Friday.

Abrego Garcia, who entered the U.S. illegally years ago, was deported in March despite a 2019 federal court order that protected him from removal to El Salvador. His case sparked national outrage and warnings from some legal scholars that it put the U.S. at risk of a constitutional crisis, as the Trump Administration opposed multiple court orders, including one from the Supreme Court, to take steps to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump told NBC News that it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. and that the move had been made by the Department of Justice. According to Trump, "it should be a very easy case" for federal prosecutors.

He went on to criticize Democrats, specifically Sen. Van Hollen of Maryland—who visited Abrego Garcia in jail in El Salvador in April—for arguing that the Maryland man was denied due process.

“He’s a loser. The guy’s a loser. They’re going to lose because of that same thing. That’s not what people want to hear,” Trump said of Van Hollen. “He’s trying to defend a man who’s got a horrible record of abuse, abuse of women in particular. No, he’s a total loser, this guy.”

The 10-page indictment against Abrego Garcia, filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, alleges that the Maryland man belongs to the MS-13 gang and participated in a conspiracy to “transport thousands of undocumented aliens” across the U.S.

The Administration has argued without verification that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, which it has designated a foreign terrorist organization, since he was deported.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the charges in a press conference, thanking El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Bondi said. “Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.”

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers told news outlets that his return on Friday made clear that the Trump Administration had the power to bring him back to the U.S., adding that it was now up to the “judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the constitution guarantees to all persons.”

“Today’s actions proves what we’ve known all along—that the Administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, said in a statement to multiple outlets.

Here’s what to know about the legal and political battle over Abrego Garcia’s case.

His deportation

On March 15, Abrego Garcia was among the more than 200 people who were removed from the country as part of a mass deportation order by the Trump Administration. The Administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to conduct expedited removals, a use of the obscure 18th-century wartime law that has faced widespread legal challenges and bipartisan concern.

A judge granted Abrego Garcia “withholding of removal” status in 2019, deeming that his concerns that he would be persecuted if he were to return to El Salvador were well-founded. The federal government initially called his deportation an “administrative error,” but later argued that it couldn’t be compelled to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. and lacked the authority to do so.

The ensuing court battle

Prior to Abrego Garcia’s return to face charges, the Trump Administration pushed back on a series of court orders instructing it to take steps to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.

On April 4, a federal judge ordered the Administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return. The Administration quickly appealed the decision, but it was upheld on April 7 by a federal appeals court and affirmed on April 10 by the Supreme Court, which directed the Administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from prison in El Salvador. A day after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the judge who had issued the April 4 decision ordered the Trump Administration to submit daily updates on its efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., amid growing judicial frustration with what many legal scholars saw as a pattern of defiance from the Administration.

The April 11 ruling came during a hearing in Maryland, where a Justice Department attorney declined to provide basic details about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts.

“I am asking a very simple question: Where is he?” the judge asked, according to CNN. “There is no evidence today as to where he is today,” she continued. “That is extremely troubling.”

The Trump Administration argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling simply said the federal government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, not “effectuate.” Administration officials have also depicted Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal apprentice, as a violent criminal, accusing him—without proof—of being affiliated with MS-13. Abrego Garcia and his family have denied the allegations, saying that he fled gang violence in El Salvador.

The federal appeals court denied the Administration’s second appeal on April 17, but the Administration continued to push back against the orders to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Administration’s refusal to bring Abrego Garcia back sparked nationwide outrage. After two days of negotiations, Sen. Chris Van Hollen was able to meet briefly with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador in April amid the ongoing battle in the courts. Four House Democrats traveled there a week later to pressure Bukele and Trump to release Abrego Garcia, but were denied access to him during their visit.

His return and indictment

Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. was revealed when the federal indictment, which was filed on May 21, was unsealed on Friday. It includes two criminal counts: “conspiracy to transport aliens” and “unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens.”

The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia, along with several alleged unnamed co-conspirators, “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.” The allegations date back to 2016.

The indictment also alleges that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, claiming that he “used his status in MS-13 to further his criminal activity” and “unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates.” It alleges that he and others agreed to transport undocumented immigrants “for profit and private financial gain,” and that they “routinely devised and employed knowingly false cover stories to provide to law enforcement if they were stopped during a transport,” such as claiming that the people being transported were on their way to construction jobs.

Abrego Garcia will now face prosecution in the U.S. courts, and, if convicted, Bondi said the government would again seek to deport him to El Salvador after his sentence is completed.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, criticized the Trump Administration’s actions, calling them “an abuse of power, not justice,” in a statement to CNN.

“The government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order. Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him. This shows that they were playing games with the court all along,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said in the statement.