Abrego Garcia: Who is he? Why was he deported from US? Will Trump bring him back? What we know so far

The "wrongful" deportation of Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the US is under question. Will he return to the US? Will US President Trump approve to his return? Can he be brought back? Here's all you need to know:

Who is Abrego Garcia?

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran man deported from the US without due process by the Trump administration, Reuters reported. He was sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security prison in El Salvador, at Dulles International Airport in Sterling, Virginia, US.

Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the United States for roughly 14 years, during which he worked in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, as per court documents reported by news agency Associated Press.

Abrego Garcia is said to be a Salvadoran migrant. According to AP, he entered the US illegally in 2011 but was given an indefinite reprieve from deportation in 2019.

According to documents presented to a US immigration judge in 2019, Abrego Garcia was born in El Salvador in 1995 to a policeman father and a mother who sold maize griddle cakes known as pupusas.

He was among scores of deportees the Trump administration has paid Bukele's administration several million dollars to keep in detention. He was living with his wife and three children in Maryland.

Why was Abrego Garcia deported from the US?

The Trump administration allegedly deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March this year. He was arrested in front of his five-year-old son as they exited a store in Maryland.

Three days later, he landed in El Salvador with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans deported just hours after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime authority.

US officials later described the mistake as “an administrative error”.

The US government contends that Abrego Garcia is a member of the notorious MS-13 Salvadoran gang, although the evidence it has produced has been dismissed as inadequate by a federal court.

Meanwhile, Garcia denies gang membership and was never charged with a crime in either country. His attorneys pointed out that the criminal informant claimed he was a member of MS-13 in Long Island, New York, where he has never lived.

What is MS-13 gang?

The La Mara Salvatrucha gang is better known as MS-13. It is said to be a national and trans-national gang with over 10,000 members in the United States and thousands more in central America and Mexico.

MS-13, originally founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants, has long been considered one of the most violent gangs operating in the United States, news agency ANI reported.

The gang is known for its use of intimidation and violence, including murder, and engages in criminal activities such as burglary and drug trafficking, the report claimed.

Will Donald Trump bring him back?

US President Donald Trump recently said he would have no personal objection to returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US for legal proceedings. He, however, insisted the decision rests with his attorneys.

"Bringing him back and retrying him wouldn't bother me, but I leave that up to my lawyer," Trump told Time magazine in an interview.

Pressed on whether he had personally asked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to release Abrego Garcia, Trump admitted he had not: "I haven’t, uh, he said he wouldn’t."

According to CBS news, Trump administration officials argued they can't return Abrego Garcia to the US because it's up to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to decide whether to send him back.

However, Bukele claimed in a White House meeting earlier this month that he doesn't "have the power" to return him on his own.

"How can I return him to the United States?" Bukele was quoted by CBS news as saying. "I smuggle him into the United States or what do I do? Of course, I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous," he added.

Bukele further referred to Abrego Garcia as a "terrorist," and said "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

Can Abrego Garcia be brought back to the US at all?

Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, last week reiterated the administration’s position that Abrego Garcia will be detained and deported again if he were to be returned to the US.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press briefing earlier, “If he [Ábrego García] ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again. He will never live in the United States of America."