Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man at the center of a political and legal maelstrom after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was flown back to the United States on Friday to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants.

The stunning move by the Trump administration, after months of fighting any effort to return him, could end the most high-profile court battle over President Trump’s authority to rapidly seize and deport immigrants.

The decision to pull Mr. Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador and instead put him on trial in an American courtroom could provide an offramp for the Trump administration, which had bitterly opposed court orders requiring the government to take steps to return him after his wrongful removal in March.

The 10-page indictment — filed in Federal District Court in Nashville in May and unsealed Friday — might also be an effort to save face: Bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia back to face criminal charges may allow the White House to avoid a broader legal confrontation that was increasingly headed toward questions of whether Trump administration officials should be held in contempt of court.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference in Washington. “He was a smuggler of humans and children and women.”

She added, “This is what American justice looks like.”

Two people familiar with the investigation said it made a significant leap forward when an imprisoned man recently came forward offering information about Mr. Abrego Garcia, but there was concern and disagreement among prosecutors about how to proceed. In recent weeks, a supervisor in the federal prosecutor’s office in Nashville resigned over how the case was handled, these people said.