Wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the U.S. and facing charges nearly three months after the Trump administration improperly sent the Maryland man back to his native El Salvador, according to reports and court filings.

The government has accused Abrego Garcia of conspiring to bring thousands of undocumented immigrants into the United States from 2016 to 2025. But his attorneys described the move as wrongheaded to charge Abrego Garcia now after federal officials defied a court order and wrongfully deported him without due process.

“This is an abuse of power, not justice,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement Friday. “The government should give him a full and fair trial in front of the same immigration judge who heard the case in 2019.”

His lawyers said Abrego Garcia, who had lived in Beltsville before his deportation, was being held in federal custody in Tennessee.

“There was no heads-up about this,” Ama Frimpong, legal director of CASA, a national organization serving working-class Black, Latino, African-descendant, Indigenous and immigrant communities, said at a press conference Friday.

“Unfortunately [Abrego Garcia’s wife] learned about this information first from the press,” Frimpong added. “Jennifer is of course very happy that her husband is back on U.S. soil.”

Abrego Garcia allegedly worked with a group of unnamed people to collect money from undocumented people from various Central American countries to help them enter the United States, prosecutors allege in court documents.

The documents accuse Abrego Garcia of being involved in more than 100 of these trips among Texas, Maryland and other states. As many as 10 people were transported on each trip, court records said.

The human trafficking charges against him stem from a vehicle stop almost three years ago by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. A report released by the federal Department of Homeland Security in April stated that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage and they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia.

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

Court documents released Friday offer more detail about that Tennessee stop on Nov. 30, 2022, including accusing Abrego Garcia of driving a Chevy Suburban with nine additional Hispanic males inside. None had identification, according to prosecutors.

Abrego Garcia “knowingly and falsely” told troopers he and the men were coming from St. Louis, where the men had been living for two weeks working on a construction project, on their way to Maryland, the court records alleged.

The vehicle did not contain any tools, construction equipment or luggage. Undocumented people illegally transported into the country by Abrego Garcia were prohibited from bringing luggage with them, the government said.

Prosecutors also alleged in the court documents that a license plate reader revealed the vehicle had not been anywhere near St. Louis for the past 12 months. Instead, it showed the vehicle was in the Houston area. Abrego Garcia, who had $1,400 in cash on him at the time of the stop, later told the people he worked with in the smuggling operation about the stop and that he was released, according to the government.

The efforts were in association with the gang MS-13, the government alleged. The group would routinely vary its routes throughout the country to further conceal its efforts.

In addition to smuggling people, prosecutors accuse Abrego Garcia and his fellow smugglers of transporting firearms and drugs to be sold in Maryland. One of the alleged smugglers working with Abrego Garcia accused him of abusing women who were transported. That behavior stopped when he was confronted by his co-conspirators, according to court documents.

Abrego Garcia and others working with him would routinely confiscate the cellphones of the undocumented people at the beginning of the trip and return them at the end so that others would not know their location, the government alleged.

After details about the indictment were released Friday, his attorneys criticized the government’s abrupt move to lodge criminal charges against Abrego Garcia along with his return.

“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. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

Sandoval-Moshenberg said at an afternoon press conference that he was planning to meet with Garcia “as soon as possible” and that he’s been held “completely incommunicado.” Garcia was not allowed visits or phone calls, according to the attorney.

Local and federal leaders from Maryland reacted to the news with concern about Abrego Garcia’s future treatment in the U.S.

“I pray that he has true due process,” Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a veteran lawmaker representing Prince George’s County in Annapolis, said.

Frimpong of CASA said the Abrego Garcia case has always been about more than one man. “It’s about whether the government can defy court orders, silence immigrants and use secretive processes to avoid accountability,” she said.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown noted in a statement that discussions about criminal charges against Abrego Garcia emerged only after his wrongful removal.

“If those concerns were credible and supported by evidence, they should have been addressed through lawful means before violating a standing judicial order,” Brown said.

Speaking on CNN on Friday, U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Democrat, said there had been speculation about what the Trump administration would do after facing scrutiny over Abrego Garcia’s deportation.

“I do think that at least it’s clear now that the Trump administration can bring these people back,” Ivey said.

The congressman, who represents Prince George’s County, unsuccessfully tried to visit Abrego Garcia in the Salvadoran prison in May.

Preceding Ivey to El Salvador was Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen. After initially rejecting his requests, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele allowed the Democrat to meet briefly with his constituent in a hotel dining area.

Van Hollen said in a statement that the Trump administration has “flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution” for months.

“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 said.

Speaking at a news conference Friday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters that Abrego Garcia had landed in the United States to “face justice.”

She thanked Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Bondi told reporters. “Upon the completion of his sentence, he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.”

On X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Bukele posted about the Abrego Garcia return, saying “I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States” and “⁠I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador."

“That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse,” the Salvadoran president wrote in his post.

During the past nine years, Abrego Garcia, according to Bondi, played a “significant role” in a human smuggling ring. The grand jury found that was his full-time job, Bondi said.

“He was a smuggler of humans and children and women,” said Bondi, who later added that Abrego Garcia “traded the innocence of minor children for profit.”

Abrego Garcia, she said, was part of the smuggling ring responsible for the death of more than 50 migrants in 2021 in Mexico.

Bondi said Abrego Garcia also trafficked guns and drugs throughout the United States.

One of his alleged co-conspirators said he solicited nude photos and videos of a minor. Another asserted that Abrego Garcia played a role in the killing of the mother of a rival gang member, according to Bondi.

“These facts demonstrate Abrego Garcia is a danger to our community,” Bondi said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.