Garcia’s mistaken removal to El Salvador became the centerpiece of a later criminal fight when a federal judge in Tennessee rejected the Justice Department’s human smuggling prosecution against Kilmar Abrego Garcia. In a ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the case, finding the government’s pursuit was designed to punish him for successfully challenging the deportation, according to the court decision described by the Associated Press.
Crenshaw found that the pursuit of criminal charges was tied to Abrego Garcia’s win in his lawsuit over the prior removal, with the judge saying that without that successful challenge, prosecutors would not have brought the prosecution. The ruling drew broader attention to the Justice Department’s posture during the Trump administration, which has faced repeated accusations that it targets defendants for political reasons, AP reported.
In court, Crenshaw said the evidence before him “sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” in language described by AP. The judge granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for what the court characterized as “selective or vindictive prosecution,” and said the government had not rebutted that inference in a way that persuaded the court.
AP reported that Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a standard that usually requires evidence such as a prosecutor admitting charges were filed in retaliation. Still, Crenshaw found there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness,” including the timing of the indictment and public statements associated with then-U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, as well as the sustained oversight of the case by other top Justice Department officials.
The dismissal also depended on the procedural history of Abrego Garcia’s case and the sequence of government actions after a mistaken deportation. AP said Homeland Security had been aware of a traffic stop involving Abrego Garcia for about two years and closed the case when it deported him, and that prosecutors later revived it after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he should be brought back to the United States.
Abrego Garcia was charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors alleging that he accepted money to transport people within the United States who were in the country illegally. AP said the charges stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding; body camera footage described by AP showed what the report characterized as a calm exchange and officers discussing suspicions of smuggling, but Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning. AP reported that there were nine passengers in the car.
The judge’s ruling described limits in how prosecutors tried to explain the timing of the renewed case. AP said prosecutors did not call the person who reopened the matter to testify about why it was brought back, and instead relied on “secondhand testimony,” which Crenshaw found unconvincing as the government attempted to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness.
Outside the courtroom, Abrego Garcia’s defense attorneys portrayed the dismissal as a response to a politicized prosecution. In a statement after Friday’s ruling, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said he was “a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department” and said they were “so pleased that he is a free man,” AP reported.
The Justice Department, for its part, vowed to appeal, AP reported, calling the judge’s order “wrong and dangerous.” Abrego Garcia’s future in the United States was still described as uncertain: the report said he was barred from being deported to El Salvador following the earlier decision, but administration officials had threatened to deport him to a series of African countries, most recently Liberia.
Supporters and Abrego Garcia also described the dismissal as a step toward justice. AP reported that in a statement released by the group We are CASA, which has supported Abrego Garcia and his family, Abrego Garcia thanked God for the dismissal and said, “Justice is a big word and an even bigger promise to fulfill; and I am grateful that today, justice has taken a step forward.”
The criminal case concluded in federal court, but the immigration background that preceded it remained central to the judge’s framing. AP reported that Abrego Garcia’s deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order that granted him protection from deportation to his home country, after a judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. AP added that Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years, and that although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager, the 2019 order allowed him to live and work under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision without residency status.