A federal judge on Thursday dismissed the human smuggling indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ending the criminal case after finding the Justice Department brought it for vindictive reasons. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to throw out the charges and said prosecutors had not overcome the presumption that the case was retaliation.
Crenshaw had already concluded that Abrego Garcia showed the prosecution may have been vindictive. In his new ruling, he said, “The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” but found the government had failed to rebut that showing. He also wrote that “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.”
Abrego Garcia was charged last year with two counts of human smuggling after a November 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, when a state Highway Patrol officer pulled him over and found numerous people in his vehicle. He pleaded not guilty. The case became entangled with his immigration fight after he was removed from the U.S. in March 2025 and flown to El Salvador, even though an immigration judge had granted him a legal status that barred deportation to his home country.
A Trump administration official later acknowledged that his removal was a mistake. Abrego Garcia then filed a civil lawsuit in Maryland challenging the deportation, and a federal judge ordered the administration in April 2025 to facilitate his return to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security resisted returning him for months before he was eventually brought back to face the criminal charges.
The judge said the sequence mattered. He wrote that the executive branch had closed its investigation into the November 2022 stop and reopened it only after Abrego succeeded in vindicating his rights. That finding goes to the heart of what Abrego Garcia and his lawyers argued for months: that he was singled out by federal authorities because he fought his deportation.
The dispute was tested during a nearly six-hour hearing in February, when defense lawyers pressed two government witnesses on when the Justice Department decided to seek an indictment and whether White House, Justice Department or Homeland Security officials were involved. Prosecutor Robert McGuire said he moved forward years after the traffic stop because “the evidence pointed to Abrego Garcia having committed a crime,” and said “it was his decision to prosecute Abrego Garcia and no one else's.”
The ruling closes one of the most politically charged strands of Abrego Garcia’s case, which became a flashpoint in President Trump's immigration crackdown. He spent time in federal custody in Tennessee and later in immigration custody in Maryland, but remained out of immigration custody for several months while the cases moved ahead. For now, the criminal case is over because the judge concluded the government’s decision to bring it was tied to his successful challenge to being sent to El Salvador.
