charges

After his mistaken deportation to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia faces US charges of transporting undocumented migrants.

A man the Donald Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been brought back to the United States, where authorities say he will face criminal charges.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, a Salvadoran immigrant who had lived nearly half his life in Maryland before he was deported in March, faces charges of transporting undocumented migrants inside the US, according to recently unsealed court records.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday that Abrego Garcia was returned to the US to “face justice”.

The indictment against him was filed on May 21, more than two months after he was deported in spite of a court order barring his removal.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, which suspected Abrego Garcia of human trafficking but ultimately issued only a warning for an expired driver’s license, according to a Department of Homeland Security report.

Bondi, speaking at a news conference, said a grand jury had “found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring”.

She said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant.

Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador as part of a Trump scheme to move undocumented migrants it accuses of being gang members, to prison in the Central American country without due process.

Bukele said in a social media post that his government works with the Trump administration and “of course” would not refuse a request to return “a gang member” to the US.

Deportation ‘a separate legal matter’

Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said Abrego Garcia could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

But “that does not deal with the ongoing matter of whether or not he should be deported”, she added. “That’s a separate legal matter.”

Abrego Garcia will have the chance to enter a plea in court and contest the charges at trial. If he is convicted, he would be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence, Bondi said.

In a statement, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rossman, said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process.

“Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” said Rossman, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel.

Abrego Garcia’s deportation defied an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from being sent back to El Salvador, where it found he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned, court records show.

Trump critics pointed to the erroneous deportation as an example of the excesses of the Republican president’s aggressive approach to stepping up deportations.

Officials countered by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have denied that he was a gang member and said he had not been convicted of any crime.

Abrego Garcia’s case has become a flash point for escalating tensions between the executive branch and the judiciary, which has ruled against a number of Trump’s policies.

The US Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the government had cited no basis for what she called his “warrantless arrest”.

US District Judge Paula Xinis also opened a probe into what, if anything, the Trump administration did to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from the US to El Salvador, has been returned to the US, where he will face charges including “alien smuggling.” US Attorney General Pam Bondi says the charges were returned by a Tennessee grand jury last month.

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador became a political flashpoint in the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement, was being returned to the United States to face criminal charges related to what the Trump administration said was a massive human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally.

He is expected to be prosecuted in the U.S. and, if convicted, will be returned to his home country in El Salvador at the conclusion of the case, officials said Friday.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said Friday in announcing the return of Abrego Garcia and the criminal charges.

The charges stem from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him of human trafficking. A report released by the Department of Homeland Security in April states that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage, while they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, and the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver’s license, according to the Homeland Security report. The report said he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.

In response to the report’s release in April, Abrego Garcia’s wife said in a statement that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.”

The Trump administration has been publicizing Abrego Garcia’s interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the U.S.

Authorities in Tennessee released video of a 2022 traffic stop last month. The body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange with Tennessee Highway Patrol officers.

Officers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were traveling without luggage. One of the officers said, “He’s hauling these people for money.” Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.

An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the footage’s release in May that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage.

“But the point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

The move comes days after the Trump administration complied with a court order to return a Guatemalan man deported to Mexico despite his fears of being harmed there. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of President Trump’s second term.

May 30 (UPI) — The man charged with ramming a vehicle into a crowd at a cup victory parade for Liverpool Football Club and injuring 79 peopel appeared in court on Friday.

Prosecutor Philip Astbury said it was the prosecution’s case that 53-year-old Paul Doyle, a former Royal Marine and now a businessman, “deliberately drove” into the crowd in Liverpool city center as people were leaving at the end of the parade.

Astbury asked that Doyle, who is from the West Derby area of Liverpool, not be granted bail for his own safety.

Doyle faces seven counts related to Monday’s incident involving six victims, two of them children, including two wounding with intent charges, two grievous bodily harm with intent charges, two attempted grievous bodily harm with intent charges and a single dangerous driving charge.

Doyle spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth and did not enter a plea.

District Judge Paul Healey remanded the married father of three in custody, telling him that his case was being sent to Liverpool Crown Court, where he would have to reappear later Friday.

Counsel for Doyle, Richard Derby, did not apply for bail.

Doyle has been in police detention since being arrested after a car collided with Liverpool city center, where hundreds of thousands of fans had gathered to celebrate Liverpool FC’s Premier League victory, but was only charged on Thursday afternoon.

Seven of those injured remain in area hospitals.

Merseyside Police said the incident remained the subject of an ongoing, active investigation with officers sifting through a large volume of digital evidence, while the Crown Prosecution Service said it was keeping the charges “under review” as the investigation progressed.

However, Mersey-Cheshire Chief Crown Prosecutor Sarah Hammond appealed for the public and media to refrain from speculation or sharing information that could derail the prosecution’s case or fair justice for the accused.

“We know Monday’s shocking scenes reverberated around the city of Liverpool, and the entire country, on what should have been a day of celebration for hundreds of thousands of Liverpool FC supporters. Our thoughts remain with all those affected,” Hammond said.

“Criminal proceedings against the defendant are active and he has the right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information or media online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

Doyle’s social media states that he served for four years as a commando in the Royal Marine Corps, an amphibious special operations unit of the Royal Navy, between 1990 and 1994.

May 30 (UPI) — An American academic facing up to 15 years in a Thai prison on allegations of insulting the monarchy has been permitted to leave the country, according to a nonprofit that advocates for Americans imprisoned abroad.

Global Reach told UPI in an emailed statement that Paul Chambers was permitted to leave Thailand on Thursday after resolving what it called “false” lese-majeste charges.

“I am relieved that this situation has been resolved,” Chambers said in a statement.

“I have always had great respect for the Thai royal family, and anyone who knows me understands that these charges were always based on false allegations by unnamed parties in the military.”

Chambers, a Thai studies scholar and lecturer at Thailand’s Naresuan University, was arrested and charged by Thai authorities in April following a complaint filed against him by the military over an October online post promoting a webinar that he was to participate in.

The English-language post was published on the website of Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The academic webinar was on Thai studies, and Chambers, a leading expert on the Thai military and Southeast Asian politics, gave a talk about the Thai military.

Chambers was not involved in the post’s creation.

According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, Chambers was allowed to leave the country after the Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday that prosecutors decided not to continue the case against the American.

Prosecutors made the decision in early May, but the attorney general needed to affirm the decision.

Chambers was originally detained April 9, but was later permitted to leave police custody and was required to wear an ankle monitor and surrender his U.S. passport and work visa, Global Reach said.

Following his arrest, the U.S. State Department issued a statement saying it was monitoring Chambers’ situation while condemning the controversial lese-majeste law.

Kieran Ramsey, who worked with Chambers on behalf of Global Reach, praised the United States for its response to the case, saying, “This was one of the best responses I have ever seen from the U.S. government.”

According to Global Reach, Chambers will return to Oklahoma to see his family and will work from the United States.

More than 270 people have been detained, prosecuted and punished under the lese-majeste laws since 2020, according to an expert panel from United Nations that said such laws “have no place in a democratic country.”

May 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Justice Department charged Rep. LaMonica McIver in connection with her alleged actions during an incident at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in her congressional district.

U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba made the announcement via an X post that stated McIver, D-N.J., has been charged with counts related to “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.”

The charges stem from a confrontation that occurred earlier on May 9 at the Delancey Hall ICE detention prison in Newark. McIver, along with fellow New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman attempted to reportedly inspect the facility where as many as 1,000 undocumented migrants are being held.

McIver, Menendez and Watson Coleman, as well as Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, were allegedly involved in a physical confrontation between demonstrators and ICE agents. Baraka was arrested at the scene and charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, but Habba noted in the press release the charge against him has since been dropped “for the sake of moving forward.”

Habba further explained she has invited Baraka to tour Delancy Hall.

However, she alleged that McIver “assaulted, impeded and interfered with law enforcement,” and “that conduct cannot be overlooked.” She also claimed she has “persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges,” and has given McIver “every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined.”

The statement did not mention if there is any intention to take McIver into custody.

McIver also released a statement Monday, in which she said she and the other Representatives present “were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many times before,” and that the “visit should have been peaceful and short.”

Instead, she alleged, “ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor Baraka.”

“The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight,” she said. “This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has accused a Mexican woman of furnishing a cartel with grenades and other weapons.

The United States has revealed the first federal charges against a foreign national for providing material support to one of the criminal groups that President Donald Trump has designated a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

On Friday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a statement identifying the suspect as 39-year-old Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez of Mexico.

An unsealed indictment accused Navarro-Sanchez of furnishing the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), a Mexican drug cartel, with grenades and helping it smuggle migrants, firearms, money and drugs.

“Cartels like CJNG are terrorist groups that wreak havoc in American communities and are responsible for countless lives lost in the United States, Mexico and elsewhere,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the statement.

“This announcement demonstrates the Justice Department’s unwavering commitment to securing our borders and protecting Americans through effective prosecution.”

The charges stem from a decision early in Trump’s second term in office to apply “terrorism” designations to foreign criminal organisations, including gangs and drug cartels.

On his first day back in office, on January 20, Trump signed an executive order declaring that “international cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime”. He directed his officials to begin preparations for implementing the “terrorism” designations.

By February 19, the Federal Register in the US listed eight Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”, among them the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).

Mexico’s Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion was also among that initial group of designated organisations.

Since then, the Trump administration has broadened its scope, adding more Latin American groups to the list. On May 2, for instance, two Haitian gangs – Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif – joined the US’s list of foreign terrorist organisations.

These designations are a departure from the usual use of the “foreign terrorist” label, often reserved for organisations that seek specific political aims through their violence.

Critics, however, warn that this application could have unintended consequences, particularly for civilians in vulnerable situations. The “foreign terrorist designation” makes it a crime for anyone to offer material support to a given group, but criminal gangs often extort civilians for money and services as part of their fundraising activities.

“You could accuse anyone – from a migrant who pays a smuggler to a Mexican business that is forced to pay a ‘protection fee’ – of offering material or financial support to a terrorist organisation,” Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera journalist Brian Osgood earlier this year.

In the case unsealed on Friday, it was revealed that Navarro-Sanchez was arrested on May 4. She had two co-defendants, also Mexican citizens, who likewise faced charges of firearms trafficking and other crimes.

The Mexican government had previously confirmed Navarro-Sanchez’s arrest. A statement ICE released to the media showed multiple firearms and packages of meth and fentanyl allegedly linked to the case.

It also included a photo of a golden AR-15 gun known as “El Dorado” that was reportedly “recovered from Navarro-Sanchez’s possession during her arrest in Mexico”.

“Supplying grenades to a designated terrorist organisation – while trafficking firearms, narcotics, and human beings – is not just criminal,” said ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons. “It’s a direct assault on the security of the United States.”