Trump Reacts to Wrongly Deported Man's US Return

UPDATE Jun 7, 2025 7:00 AM CDT

President Trump has weighed in on the return to the US of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador who's become a centerpiece of resistance to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One that it was the DOJ's decision to do so, and that he gets why that decision may have been made, per Fox News. "Maybe they just said, 'Look, all of these people, these judges, they want to try and run the country,'" the president mused. "[Abrego Garcia] has a horrible past, and I could see a decision being made, bring him back, show everybody how horrible this guy is. ... I could see. He's a bad guy."

Jun 6, 2025 4:11 PM CDT

The Trump administration ended the legal standoff over a Maryland man it concedes it mistakenly deported and had imprisoned in El Salvador by bringing him back to the US to face criminal charges. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two human smuggling counts: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain, and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain, CNN reports. The indictment was returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Tennessee in May and unsealed on Friday. The Supreme Court, as well as a lower court judge, had told the administration to act to return Abrego Garcia to the US.

"The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring," Bondi said, per ABC News. "He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country," she added. Conviction could result in a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for each migrant that prosecutors prove he smuggled into the US, per the Washington Post. It could also mean deportation to El Salvador or another country.

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The case against Abrego Garcia stems from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee by Highway Patrol officers. A report released by the Department of Homeland Security in April says that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage and that they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia, per the AP. Bondi didn't say when the federal investigation of Abrego García began or what findings led to the case being presented to a grand jury, per the Post. (More Kilmar Abrego Garcia stories.)