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Where is Kilmar Abrego Garcia now? Salvadoran man returned to the US, charged with human smuggling
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, deported to El Salvador, has returned to the U.S., facing federal charges of illegal alien smuggling.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, is now back in the United States to face serious federal criminal charges.
Following months of legal wrangling and mounting tensions between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary, Abrego Garcia finally returned.
Donald Trump said, Garcia is a “bad guy” and that the courts will “show how horrible this guy is.,” per Fox News.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed Friday that Garcia had been flown back to the U.S. and is now in federal custody. After his deportation to El Salvador in March, courts repeatedly ordered the government to “facilitate” his return.
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What charges is Abrego Garcia facing?
Abrego Garcia is now facing two felony charges in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport undocumented “illegal aliens” for financial gain. The indictment alleges that Garcia was part of a long-running smuggling operation that transported thousands of migrants many of whom were allegedly linked to the MS-13 gang.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” said Attorney General Bondi. “They found this was his full time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country.”
After his initial court appearance on Friday evening, Abrego Garcia answered “Yes, I understand” in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked if he understood the charges against him.
Judge Holmes scheduled his arraignment for 13 June and will also consider the government's motion to keep him in pre-trial detention, citing concerns that he “poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight.”
ALSO READ| Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the US, charged with transporting people in the country illegally
“If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment for ‘each alien’ he transported,” prosecutors said.
“They’ll stop at nothing at all — even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable — just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case.” Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said, and added, “Mr. Garcia is going to be vigorously defending the charges against him,” per ABC News.
