Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran-born resident of Maryland, has become the focal point of a national controversy after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year and subsequently returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges.
Garcia’s case, alongside those of deported individuals who did not have their day in court, has ignited debates over due process, immigration enforcement, and the limits of executive authority.
Ábrego García, who entered the United States from El Salvador around 2011 to escape gang violence, was granted withholding of removal status by a U.S. immigration judge in 2019, legally protecting him from deportation to El Salvador due to credible threats against his life. Despite this court order, he was deported on March 15, 2025, as part of a Trump administration crackdown that sent planeloads of alleged gang members to El Salvador, where they were incarcerated in the notorious CECOT mega-prison.
The administration later admitted that Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error.” He was imprisoned in El Salvador without trial, even though he had never been charged with or convicted of a crime in either country.
The federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S., warning of a potential constitutional crisis if the executive branch defied judicial authority. Despite the Supreme Court’s mandate, the administration delayed his return for months, saying it was not possible to bring Garcia to America.
Upon his return to the United States, Ábrego García was indicted in the Middle District of Tennessee on two counts: conspiracy to unlawfully transport undocumented immigrants for profit and unlawful transportation of undocumented immigrants for financial gain. The indictment alleges that, between 2016 and 2025, he and others conspired to transport thousands of undocumented individuals, including alleged members of the MS-13 gang, from the Texas border to other parts of the country.
While federal authorities have linked Ábrego García to MS-13, his family and legal representatives vehemently deny these allegations, describing him as a devoted husband and father who fled gang violence, not a perpetrator of it. His wife maintains that he worked in construction and occasionally drove groups of workers.
Until this week, Kilmar Ábrego García had never been charged with any crime in either the United States or El Salvador. Multiple news outlets and court documents confirm that, despite repeated claims from Trump administration officials labeling him a “dangerous criminal,” there was no record of criminal charges or convictions against him prior to the recent federal indictment in Tennessee.
The Trump administration has aggressively sought to portray Ábrego García as a member of the MS-13 gang, despite a lack of credible evidence. Notably, President Trump repeatedly circulated a photo of Ábrego García’s hand on social media, claiming his finger tattoos spelled out “MS-13.” However, experts and journalists quickly identified that the letters and numbers in the image were digitally added and did not appear in original photos of his tattoos.
Kilmar Ábrego García is not the only person detained or deported without due process. Under the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies, numerous individuals have been expelled from the United States without the opportunity to contest their removal or even appear before a judge. American citizens have even been detained.
