(NewsNation) — Kilmar Abrego, the Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador due to an administrative error, will return to the United States to face criminal charges, according to NewsNation’s partner The Hill.

He faces two counts of unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain, and a third count for conspiracy.

Administration officials plan to file charges against Abrego Garcia in connection to a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, an attorney for Abrego Garcia told The Hill.

“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,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told The Hill in a statement.

“This shows that they were playing games with the court all along.  Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished, not after.  This is an abuse of power, not justice. The government should put him on trial, yes—but in front of the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, which is the ordinary manner of doing things, “to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” as the Supreme Court ordered.”

Abrego Garcia was deported in March and has since remained at the center of a contentious legal fight between the Trump administration and those advocating that he was wrongfully deported to his home
country.

Trump administration officials maintain that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has remained in an El Salvador megaprison despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return to the United States.

This week, a federal judge ordered the unsealing of several court documents in the lawsuit over Abrego Garcia’s deportation. The Trump administration argued that unsealing the documents would be a threat to national security.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have argued that the Trump administration has done nothing to bring Abrego
Garcia back to the United States. They say the government is invoking the privilege to hide behind the misconduct of mistakenly deporting him and refusing to bring him back.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials have repeatedly said that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which Trump designated as a foreign terrorist organization in an executive order.

Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador who entered the United States illegally. He has been living in Maryland with his U.S.-born wife and son after being provided protected legal status and legal work authorization in 2019. The protected status was granted after an immigration judge agreed with Abrego Garcia that his life was in danger if he was sent back to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 12 and questioned about his MS-13 affiliation. He was deported on March 15 on one of three flights to El Salvador that included alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The Justice Department argued on April 7 that although Abrego Garcia was deported through an “administrative error,” his removal from the U.S. was not an error. The error, department attorneys wrote, was in having him deported specifically to El Salvador even though he had been protected from deportation through the 2019 order.