Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national returned to the United States after being deported to his home country, pled not guilty to federal human trafficking charges on June 13.
Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago. Upon his arrest and deportation to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March, he was accused of being a member of MS-13, a gang that has been designated a terrorist organization.
However, legal battles ensued to force the U.S. government to return Abrego Garcia to the United States due to a 2019 immigration judge ruling that he could not be deported due to the threat of gang persecution. A judge ruled that the government had to make sure “his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”…