Justice Department Says the Trump Administration Plans to Re-Deport Abrego Garcia

Less than three weeks after Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was brought back from a wrongful deportation to El Salvador to face criminal charges in the United States, the Trump administration indicated on Thursday that it planned to deport him again — this time to a different country.

Jonathan Guynn, a Justice Department lawyer, acknowledged to a judge that there were “no imminent plans” to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia. Still, the assertion that the administration intends to re-deport a man who was just returned to the country after being indicted raised questions about the charges the Justice Department filed against him.

It was a surprising development when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on June 6 that officials were bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia back to the United States after weeks of insisting that the Trump administration was powerless to comply with a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release from Salvadoran custody.

The administration’s stated reason for doing so was equally surprising: so that Mr. Abrego Garcia could stand trial, Ms. Bondi said, on serious charges of taking part in a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants across the United States.

During a news conference in Washington, Ms. Bondi assailed Mr. Abrego Garcia as “a smuggler of humans and children and women,” linking him to even more serious crimes like murder and drug trafficking.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Ms. Bondi said. “Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.”