Skip to content
LPBN-Icon-v1
ImmigrationProf Blog
A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network

News Flash: Kilmar Abrego Garcia Returned to the U.S., Indicted for Human Trafficking Conspiracy

By immigrationprof

45_donald_trump

Let me get this story right.

The U.S. government wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador where he has been held since March in a maximum security prison.

The U.S. government is ordered by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.

The U.S. government announced that the government of El Salvador would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States. and that nothing could be done  He remained in maximum security lockdown.

The U.S. government indicts Abrego Garcia and El Salvador and he very quickly is returned to the United States. 

The indictment has criminal charges with some facts but there are no co-conspirators identified.  Are we are supposed to believe that Abrego Garcia is a big time human trafficker?  An apprentice sheet metal worker, he appeared to live a modest life with his wife and children (including one with developmental issues) in Maryland. 

I am not making this up.

Hannah Rabinowitz, Devan Cole and Katelyn Polantz for CNN report that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, has been returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges. The “Trump administration has been locked in an intense standoff with the federal judiciary over court orders for the government to `facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador . . . in a situation that one federal judge warned could present an `incipient crisis’ between the two branches.”

Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the in the Middle District of Tennessee:  conspiracy to unlawfully transport unauthorized immigrants for financial gain and unlawful transportation of unauthorized immigrants for financial gain. The indictment accuses Abrego Garcia and other unnamed persons of participating in a conspiracy to “knowingly and unlawfully transport[] thousands of undocumented immigrants, including MS-13 members and associates.”

CNN further reported that “Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, criticized the Trump administration as `playing games with the court,’ . . . . `The government disappeared Kilmar to a foreign prison in violation of a court order. Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him. This shows that they were playing games with the court all along,’ Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement to CNN. `Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after. This is an abuse of power, not justice. The government should put him on trial, yes—but in front of the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, which is the ordinary manner of doing things, ‘to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,’ as the Supreme Court ordered.’”

Here is the indictment.  Here is the government’s motion for pretrial detention.

I am not one for conspiracy theories but . . . . 

 

Stay tuned as WWE action continues.

Donald Trump vs. Vince McMahon (husband of Secretary of Education Linda McMahon) in WWE action (also not made up).

Update (June 7):  ABC News reports that “[t]he decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader’s decision told ABC News. Schrader’s resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said. . . . Schrader, who spent 15 years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and was most recently the chief of the criminal division, declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.”

KJ

Posted in:
Current Affairs, Religion and Sports