A federal judge in Nashville, Tennessee, dismissed all criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Friday, ruling that the Justice Department had pursued the human smuggling case as retaliation for his successful legal challenge against his wrongful deportation to El Salvador. The ruling marked a significant judicial rebuke of the Trump administration's use of criminal prosecution in an immigration dispute that had become one of the most closely watched cases in the United States.
Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old Salvadoran citizen who has lived in Maryland for years with his American wife and child, was deported in March 2025 to CECOT, El Salvador's notorious maximum-security anti-terrorism prison, despite a 2019 US immigration court order explicitly barring his return to El Salvador due to the risk of gang persecution. The administration later admitted the deportation was an "administrative error." After the US Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate his return, he was brought back to the United States in June 2025 — but only after federal prosecutors had secured a criminal indictment charging him with human smuggling and conspiracy, based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee in which nine passengers were found in the car he was driving. He pleaded not guilty.
US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw ruled that the charges amounted to selective and vindictive prosecution. "The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego's successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution," Crenshaw wrote. The judge noted that Homeland Security had been aware of the 2022 traffic stop for two years and had closed its investigation before deporting Abrego Garcia — only reopening the case once the Supreme Court ordered his return. While stopping short of finding "actual vindictiveness" — a rarely met legal standard — the judge found sufficient evidence of "presumptive vindictiveness," pointing to the timing of the indictment, inflammatory public statements by senior Justice Department officials, and the government's failure to call as a witness the person who had reopened the investigation. The Justice Department called the ruling "wrong and dangerous" and vowed to appeal.
The case had drawn intense national attention from its earliest stages. When the charges were announced, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi declared at a press conference, "This is what American justice looks like." Reports had also emerged that the Trump administration was considering deporting Abrego Garcia to a third country — most recently Liberia — while the criminal case was ongoing, a move that a separate judge blocked. In August, he was briefly re-arrested during an immigration meeting in Baltimore before another court ordered his release.
In a statement issued through We Are CASA, a Maryland-based immigrant rights organisation that supported his legal defence, Abrego Garcia 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." His legal team described him as "a victim of a politicised, vindictive White House." The ruling is seen as a significant constraint on the administration's ability to use criminal charges as a tool against individuals who successfully challenge deportation decisions in court.