WASHINGTON (AP) — 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,” Attorney General 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

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