Kilmar Abrego García, wrongly deported, returns to the United States for trial

Kilmar Armando Abrego García, “the man at the center of a political and legal whirlwind after being wrongly deported to El Salvador, was returned to the United States on Friday” to face charges of “transporting undocumented migrants,” summarizes The New York Times .

The "stunning" decision by the Trump administration, which fiercely opposed Mr. Abrego García's return despite multiple court injunctions - all the way up to the Supreme Court - "could put an end to the spectacular legal battle over President Trump's right to seize and quickly deport immigrants," the newspaper said.

The Abrego García case made headlines because it was "the first time the government admitted an error in its expulsion policy," recalls El País .

The 29-year-old Salvadoran, who lives in Maryland and is married to an American woman, "was imprisoned on March 15 in the mega high-security prison known as the Terrorist Detention Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, despite legal protection prohibiting his expulsion from the United States," notes the Madrid daily.

Despite a clean criminal record, the government accused him, without providing evidence, of belonging to the Salvadoran criminal gang MS-13 – allegations rejected by his lawyers and family.

Since then, his lawyers and relatives have been clamoring for his repatriation to the United States, without succeeding in influencing Donald Trump or his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele, who both insisted that it was impossible to send him back to Maryland – at least not in freedom, as he discovered on Friday.

Because “Abrego García was secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville last month on two counts: transporting undocumented immigrants and conspiracy,” Politico reports. “The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, when police found Abrego García driving an SUV carrying nine other men, all Hispanic and without ID,” the site adds.

According to the indictment, made public Friday and seen by ABC News , Mr. Abrego García's illegal activities "lasted nearly a decade and involved the transportation [into the United States] of thousands of non-citizens from Mexico and Central America, including children, in exchange for thousands of dollars."

And among those "presumably transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13," sources close to the investigation say.

A few hours after his return to American soil, Mr. Abrego García was presented to a court, and a new hearing was set for June 13. “If convicted, he could be sentenced to a maximum of ten years in prison for each person transported,” a sentence that would go “well beyond the rest of the defendant’s life,” notes the New York Times .

Neither Donald Trump, questioned by journalists on Friday, nor his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, made any connection between Mr. Abrego García's return and the error made a few months ago. According to them, the only reason for his repatriation was the legal proceedings against him.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Mr. Abrego García's lawyer, " criticized the Justice Department for bringing these charges after sending him to a foreign prison in violation of a court order," USA Today reports.

“Today, after months of waiting and secrecy, they are bringing him back, not to correct their mistake, but to prosecute him,” the lawyer said. “Due process means having the opportunity to defend yourself before being punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice.”

But for the BBC , with these latest developments, "the White House is killing two birds with one stone", because "by repatriating Ábrego García to face prosecution, Trump avoids giving the impression of complying with the demands of justice while resolving the legal impasse" which threatened to "plunge the country into a constitutional crisis" .