The sudden return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States on Friday to face federal charges of smuggling migrants across the country was a messaging triumph for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news deflected public attention from a series of unanimous court rulings\u2014including a Supreme Court decision\u2014that President Donald Trump did not have the power to unilaterally detain and deport individuals to foreign prisons without a review by a judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the allegations against Abrego Garcia are damning. A federal grand jury found that the 29-year-old was an MS-13 member who transported thousands of undocumented immigrants, including children, from Texas to states across the country for profit for nine years. He allegedly also transported firearms and drugs, abused female migrants and was linked to an incident in Mexico where a tractor-trailer overturned and killed 50 migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer representing Abrego-Garcia, said Saturday that he planned to meet his client for the first time on Sunday, but declined to further comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A former senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, said he was struck by the large amount of resources the DOJ put into investigating Abrego Garcia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is odd that they would use all of these folks to go after a low-level driver,\u201d said the official. \u201cUsually, we used the driver to go after the coyotes and up if we could. But they really wanted to get this guy and it looks like they found a path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a telephone interview<\/a> with NBC News\u2019s Kristen Welker on Saturday, Trump hailed Abrego Garcia\u2019s indictment and predicted it would be easy for federal prosecutors to convict him. \u201cI think it should be,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Multiple questions about Abrego Garcia, the case against him, and the political fallout remain unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For months, Abrego Garcia\u2019s lawyers, his wife, and some Democrats, have denied that he was an MS-13 gang member. They generally portrayed him as a Maryland construction worker and claimed he was transporting co-workers when a Tennessee state trooper stopped him on Interstate 40 on November 30, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The indictment paints a different picture: Abrego Garcia was transporting nine Hispanic males without identification or luggage in a Chevrolet Suburban. Prosecutors allege he \u201cknowingly and falsely\u201d told the trooper they \u201chad been in St. Louis for two weeks doing construction\u201d and were returning to Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, license plate reader data showed that the Suburban had not been near St. Louis for twelve months. Instead, it had been in Houston where, according to prosecutors, Abrego Garcia had picked up the men. The vehicle was not carrying tools or construction equipment, but its rear cargo area had been modified with makeshift seating to transport more passengers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The apparent strength of the government\u2019s case could reignite debate among Democrats about the risks of focusing on Abrego Garcia\u2019s case. For weeks, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and other Democrats emphasized that their criticism targeted Trump\u2019s decision to unilaterally deport Abrego Garcia without judicial oversight, not a defense of Abrego Garcia himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Welker asked about Van Hollen<\/a>, President Trump mocked the Senator and said defending the Abrego Garcia would backfire on Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s a loser. The guy\u2019s a loser,\u201d Trump said, referring to Van Hollen. \u201cThey\u2019re going to lose because of that same thing. That\u2019s not what people want to hear. He\u2019s trying to defend a man who\u2019s got a horrible record of abuse, abuse of women in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Van Hollen defended his stance in a CNN interview. \u201cYou know, I will never apologize for defending the Constitution,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s the Trump administration and all his cronies who should apologize to the country for putting us through this unnecessary situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an Oval Office visit on April 15, 2025, Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials asserted that it was not possible for the Trump administration to \u201cfacilitate\u201d the return of Abrego Garcia\u2019s return from El Salvador as the Supreme Court had ordered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele mocked a reporter for asking whether he would do so.\u201cHow can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?\u201d Bukele said,<\/strong> sitting beside Trump in the Oval Office. \u201cOf course I\u2019m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, in turn, chided the assembled journalists, saying, \u201cThey\u2019d love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bondi said only El Salvador could decide whether to return Bukele. \u201cIf they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,\u201d said Bondi said. \u201cThat\u2019s up for El Salvador if they want to return him. That\u2019s not up to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, in a Friday press conference at the Justice Department, Bondi described the return of Abrego Garcia as smooth and seamless. \u201cWe want to thank President Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States,\u201d she said. \u201cOur government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked what had changed since the traffic stop in 2022, she lauded Trump. \u201cWhat has changed is Donald Trump is now president of the United States,\u201d Bondi said, \u201cand our borders are again secure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an unusual move, Bondi also described allegations against Abrego Garcia that were not included in the indictment. She said that co-conspirators alleged that Abrego Garcia \u201csolicited nude photographs and videos of a minor\u201d and \u201cplayed a role in the murder of a rival gang member\u2019s mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For decades, attorneys general from both parties and state and local prosecutors have generally accused defendants of crimes only for which a grand jury indicted them. Discussing other potential crimes has long been regarded as an abuse of prosecutorial power, risking unfair harm to defendants\u2019 reputations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity, citing fears of retaliation, said that Bondi often speaks as a partisan Trump loyalist, not a neutral law enforcement official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe says the president\u2019s name every time,\u201d said the former DOJ official. \u201cShe talks more like a politician, stumping for a candidate than an attorney general who is out there talking independently. You can see that in the words she uses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> on Friday that people close to the matter said the indictment prompted the resignation of a veteran career prosecutor who headed the criminal division at the U.S. attorney\u2019s office where the case was filed. The Journal did not name the prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, days after Abrego Garcia was indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville, Ben Schrader, the head of criminal division in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in Nashville, resigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEarlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee,\u201d Schrader posted on LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a>. <\/strong>\u201cIt has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I\u2019ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about Schrader\u2019s resignation by NBC News, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said it does not comment on personnel changes. Schrader, reached by NBC News via text on his cell phone, sent a two-word reply when asked why he had resigned: <\/strong>\u201cNo comment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n