KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA RETURNS TO THE US — BUT NOT THE WAY HIS SUPPORTERS WANTED. For two months, Democrats have agitated on behalf of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant, alleged gang member, and suspected human trafficker whom the Trump administration deported to El Salvador. Picked up by police in Maryland in 2019, Abrego Garcia was given a deportation order on the basis of his unlawful presence in the United States and gang activity. But the immigration judge specifically ordered that Abrego Garcia not be deported to his home country of El Salvador, where Abrego Garcia claimed he would be in danger.
As it turned out, Abrego Garcia never went anywhere until March of this year, when he was arrested as part of the new Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants who have received deportation orders. But as everyone knows, U.S. authorities deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador — precisely where the judge had said he should not be sent.
The Trump administration admitted it made a mistake but also maintained that once Abrego Garcia was in prison in El Salvador, the U.S. had little power to bring him back. By then, many Democrats had turned Abrego Garcia into an anti-Trump cause. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and said he passed on a “message of love” from Abrego Garcia’s wife to Kilmar. Van Hollen assured reporters that all the efforts to bring Abrego Garcia home, plus his family’s love, gave Abrego Garcia “the strength to persevere.” For many Democrats, activists, and their allies in the media, it was a touching story.
Not long after, though, the administration passed on information about Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang activities and allegations he had abused his wife, who had sought protective orders against him. And then came information that he had been stopped driving in Tennessee in 2022 with a car full of what appeared to be illegal immigrants.
The Tennessee story looked quite suspicious. “On December 1, 2022, subject was observed speeding and unable to maintain its lane and was subsequently pulled over,” police documents said. “Upon approach to the vehicle, encountering officer noted that there were eight other individuals in the vehicle with the subject, who was identified as the driver. Subject stated he was driving ‘three days ago’ from Houston, TX to Temple Hills, MD to bring in people to perform construction work. There was no luggage in the vehicle, leading the encountering officer to suspect this was a human trafficking incident. All the passengers gave the same home address as the subject’s home address. During the interview, subject pretended to speak less English than he was capable of and attempted to put encountering officer off-track by responding to questions with questions.”
It very quickly appeared that the Tennessee matter might become a serious problem for Abrego Garcia and his supporters. And now, that has turned out to be the case. On Friday afternoon, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that federal prosecutors in Tennessee have indicted Abrego Garcia on two counts of human smuggling.
Prosecutors allege that Abrego Garcia, acting with several coconspirators, “knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates.” There were more than 100 trips in all, prosecutors say. The indictment also alleges that Abrego Garcia “worked with transnational criminal organizations in Mexico to transport undocumented aliens through Mexico and into the United States.”
The indictment refers to Abrego Garcia’s alleged coconspirators as “CC-1” and “CC-2,” etc., and gives readers an idea of how the scheme worked. For example, CC-1 was at one time imprisoned for alien smuggling. During CC-1’s time in jail, CC-1 directed another coconspirator, CC-2, to work with Abrego Garcia to transport illegal immigrants deep inside the U.S. When CC-1 was released from prison and deported, he turned around and illegally reentered the U.S. and returned to his work with Abrego Garcia, CC-2, and others. The indictment also says Abrego Garcia and his coconspirators occasionally smuggled illegal guns and drugs from Texas into Maryland.
Then, Abrego Garcia was stopped on Interstate 40 in Putnam County, Tennessee. Contrary to the early reports, the indictment says he had nine, not eight, passengers with him. (Abrego Garcia apparently modified his Chevy Suburban to turn it into a little bus.) He allegedly lied to police, telling them he had been in St. Louis when in fact he had been taking his usual route of picking up illegal immigrants in the Houston, Texas, area.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Bondi said Friday. “They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor.” So much for the hardworking Maryland dad thing.
Now, Abrego Garcia is back in the U.S., behind bars in Tennessee. Acting on Democratic lawsuits and the actions of an activist judge, the Supreme Court in April ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador. Now, the administration has done precisely that.
Early on, after reports came out of Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang membership and spousal abuse, the Democrats who took up his cause hurried to explain that they did not really support Abrego Garcia personally — they just wanted to make sure he received due process in the U.S. Well, now Abrego Garcia is receiving due process in the U.S. It should be a satisfying ending for both sides.