A U.S. judge has dismissed the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last year and returned to the U.S. in June.
Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint in the immigration debate after the Trump administration admitted it had mistakenly deported him to a megaprison in El Salvador. After his return, federal prosecutors charged him with human smuggling over a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where several people were found in his car. He pleaded not guilty.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the case, saying Abrego Garcia had been charged for political reasons.
“The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” Crenshaw wrote. She said the case was launched to justify the government’s decision to deport him and that the Trump administration had failed to rebut the “presumption of vindictiveness.”
“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,” she wrote. “The Executive Branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop. Only after Abrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the Executive Branch reopen that investigation.”
The Justice Department has not yet commented on the ruling. Prosecutors had previously said the case was apolitical and that charges were brought because “the evidence pointed to Abrego Garcia having committed a crime.”
Abrego Garcia, 30, is married to a U.S. citizen and has lived in Maryland for years. He entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager.
In 2019, he was arrested in Maryland and granted protection from deportation by a judge who found he could face persecution by a gang in El Salvador. Despite that, the Trump administration deported him in March 2025. The U.S. Supreme Court later ordered the government to return him.
He spent months in CECOT, a notorious Salvadoran megaprison, before being brought back to the U.S. after prosecutors secured human trafficking charges. On his return in June, he was arrested and taken to Tennessee to face the charges.
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued he was being vindictively prosecuted. In August, he was arrested again in Baltimore during an immigration meeting and held until a judge ordered his release. Another judge barred the government from removing him to a third country after reports the administration was considering sending him to Uganda.
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, celebrated the ruling on X.
“Today, a federal judge determined what we’ve known all along: the Trump administration was engaged in a vindictive prosecution against Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen wrote. “This is a win for all our rights and the Constitution.”
