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 returned to the United States on Friday to face criminal charges related to what the Trump administration said was a massive human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally.

His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in a saga that yielded a remarkable, months-long standoff between Trump officials and the courts over a deportation that officials initially acknowledged was done in error but then continued to stand behind in apparent defiance of orders by judges to facilitate his return to the U.S.

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