A Salvadoran immigrant who was mistakenly deported to a high-security El Salvador megaprison returned to the United States to face criminal charges of human trafficking, it was announced Friday. 

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was indicted in Tennessee federal court on two charges related to a years-long operation that found criminals trafficked “thousands” of undocumented migrants, including minors and members of the MS-13 gang, from Texas to other parts of the United States.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Attorney General Bondi said in a press conference. “The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring. They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor,” she added. 

In a grand jury indictment that was handed up in May and unsealed today, Mr. Abrego Garcia is accused of making more than 100 trips to smuggle people, including members of MS-13, as well as firearms and drugs throughout the country. Mr. Abrego Garcia and his co-conspirators transported “between six and ten undocumented aliens per trip to maximize efficiency and profits,” according to the indictment.

The indictment accuses him of using a “reconfigured vehicle with after-market unattached seating rows” and transporting “children on the floorboards of vehicles in order to maximize profits.”

Co-conspirators of Mr. Abrego Garcia allege the man had solicited nude photographs and video of a minor, and was involved in the murder of the mother of a rival gang member. 

“The defendant traded the innocence of minor children for profit,” Ms. Bondi said.

In March, Mr. Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland with his wife and three children, was arrested by immigration officers and mistakenly deported to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador, despite Mr. Abrego Garcia having protected status in his home country. Trump administration officials admitted his deportation happened due to an “administrative error,” but pushed back on court orders to have the man returned to the United States.

The Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a lower court to “facilitate” the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia. However, in an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and the president of El Salvador, top officials said they would not bring him back to America due to the allegations he was a member of MS-13.

The deputy White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, said that because Mr. Trump designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and the government alleges Mr. Garcia was a member of the gang, he “had to be returned” to El Salvador.

He then spun Judge Xinis’s order, explaining that it would be like America telling the El Salvador government that it had to “kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.” He also said, “No version of this, legally, ever ends up with him living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador.”

At the time, when asked if El Salvador planned to return Mr. Garcia, the country’s president responded, “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

He also rejected the idea of simply releasing Mr. Abrego Garcia into El Salvador. 

The issue of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation has been hotly debated. In 2019, a federal judge expressed doubt about the evidence that appeared to show he was a member of the gang. However, in an interview with ABC News’s Terry Moran, Mr. Trump insisted that Mr. Abrego Garcia physically had “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles above several symbols. The ABC News host noted other pictures did not show “MS-13” on his knuckles and suggested the letters were digitally added to interpret the symbols. 

Senator Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador and met with Mr. Abrego Garcia in April as Democrats focused on his story to criticize the Trump administration’s deportation efforts.

Mr. Van Hollen responded to the news of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return to America in a statement, saying, “For months, the Trump administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States.”

He added that the case was “not about the man” but about “his constitutional rights — and the rights of all.”