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Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national deported earlier this year, is now back on U.S. soil — but this time, in handcuffs.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that Abrego Garcia, 29, has landed in the United States and is set to face federal charges for human smuggling and conspiracy.
“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said. “A grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee returned a sealed indictment charging him with alien smuggling and conspiracy.”
According to the indictment, Garcia played a “significant role” in a human smuggling ring operating for nearly a decade. Bondi described him as a full-time smuggler who made more than 100 trips, transporting women, children, and MS-13 gang-affiliated persons throughout the United States.
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“He traded the innocence of minor children for profit,” Bondi said. Children were among those allegedly trafficked. The indictment, filed under seal last month, includes two felony counts.
Fox News Digital obtained Tennessee Highway Patrol bodycam footage from a 2022 traffic stop where troopers pulled over Garcia for speeding. Inside his vehicle were eight other men, raising immediate suspicions. “He’s hauling these people for money,” one trooper said.
Troopers found $1,400 in cash and flagged Garcia in the National Crime Information Center, which returned a gang/terrorism alert. ICE was called, but never responded.
“What’s changed since then?” Bondi asked rhetorically at the press conference. “Donald Trump is now president of the United States, and our borders are again secure.”
The grand jury also heard allegations that Garcia trafficked firearms, narcotics, and solicited explicit images of a minor. He is even accused by a co-conspirator of being involved in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother.
Pam Bondi thanked El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele for cooperating with the U.S. government and returning Garcia after the U.S. presented an arrest warrant. “This is what American justice looks like,” she said.
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This development comes after controversy erupted in March when Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, a move many politicians on the Left claimed was unjust.
“For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,” wrote Democrate Senator Van Hollen in a statement.
Van Hollen made the trek to El Salvador to visit Garcia earlier this year, sparking internet backlash after being photographed with purported margaritas at a restaurant.
“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along,” Van Hollen concluded.
Court filings submitted today in the District of Maryland confirm that the government has complied with an April 4 preliminary injunction ordering his return. “Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States today, to stand trial,” federal attorneys wrote in the notice.
But the Trump administration made it clear this was no victory for his defenders:
“The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools,” a Trump administration statement said. “Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’ — he is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker… Democrat lawmakers like Senator Chris Van Hollen and the so-called ‘journalists’ who defended this criminal must immediately apologize to his victims.”
Abrego Garcia was reportedly sent to the notorious CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador after deportation, despite a 2019 court order temporarily blocking his removal due to claimed fears of persecution.
Court records show Garcia entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and was ordered deported in 2019.
He will be prosecuted and, if convicted, serve his sentence in the U.S. before being returned to El Salvador, officials confirmed.
“For the last 2 months, the media and Democrats have burnt to the ground any last shred of credibility they had left as they glorified Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a known MS13 gang member, human trafficker, and serial domestic abuser,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told Fox News Digital.
“Today, the United States of America confronts Kilmar Abrego Garcia with overwhelming evidence— he is being indicted by a grand jury for human smuggling, including children, and conspiracy. Justice awaits this Salvadoran man.”
Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
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