A human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation helped galvanize opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, was thrown out Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador last year became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. Abrego Garcia claimed that both the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, ruling from Nashville, granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.”
Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution,” said Crenshaw, dismissing claims of “new evidence” against him.
In earlier court filings, Crenshaw wrote he had found some evidence that the prosecution against Abrego Garcia “may be vindictive.” The judge said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern.” He cited a statement by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that seemed to suggest the Justice Department charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire had resisted requests to provide documents and testimony to Abrego Garcia from senior Justice Department officials including Blanche. McGuire insisted that he was the decision-maker in the case and that his motivations were the only relevant ones.
Abrego Garcia was charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors claiming that he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.
The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
In the Friday ruling, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the presumption of vindictiveness. Homeland Security had been aware of the traffic stop for two years and had closed the case against Abrego Garcia when it deported him.
Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he should be brought back to the U.S., they reopened the case. While the government bore the responsibility to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness, prosecutors did not call as a witness the person who reopened the case, to explain why. Instead they offered only “secondhand testimony.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order granting him protection from deportation to his home country, after the judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. The 2019 order allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia cannot remain in the U.S. They have vowed to deport him to a third country, most recently Liberia.
