Washington — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who the Trump administration admitted was mistakenly deported back to his home country, has been charged with two federal criminal counts in the U.S., according to an indictment unsealed Friday.
Filed in the federal district court in Nashville, the indictment charges Abrego Garcia with one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. Abrego Garcia was removed from the U.S. to El Salvador in March, where he was being held at a notorious supermax prison.
ABC News reported Friday that he was being brought back to the U.S. to face the criminal charges.
Abrego Garcia’s case sparked nationwide backlash after an immigration official in the Trump administration acknowledged that his deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error.” The 29-year-old had been granted a legal status in 2019, known as withholding of removal, that forbade the Department of Homeland Security from removing him to his home country of El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution by local gangs.
Abrego Garcia was among the more than 200 people who were boarded onto planes bound for El Salvador in mid-March for confinement in the country’s notorious maximum-security Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. The removals were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, which have prompted numerous legal battles across the country.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.