A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s human-smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego García on Friday, ruling that the Trump administration improperly brought it to punish him for successfully challenging his illegal deportation last year.
U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. in Tennessee wrote that “evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power.”
The decision delivered an extraordinary defeat for the administration, which marshaled the resources of multiple federal agencies to publicly malign Abrego after court rulings concluded that officials had unlawfully deported him to his native El Salvador, in violation of a 2019 immigration court order.
Crenshaw’s ruling also marked the first time a judge has validated what has become an increasingly common defense raised by high-profile defendants targeted by the Justice Department in Trump’s second term: the claim that they are being prosecuted not in pursuit of justice but rather for political revenge.
In his decision, the judge acknowledged the incredibly high bar defendants must meet to warrant a case’s dismissal on those grounds. It requires defense attorneys to prove that charges would not have been brought but for improper, vindictive motives on the part of government attorneys.
In Abrego’s case, Crenshaw said, it was clear that the investigation into him was tainted “with a vindictive motive.” The judge wrote that while he found “insufficient evidence of actual vindictiveness,” he also concluded that the Trump administration “failed to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness.”
Crenshaw, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote in a 32-page opinion that he did not reach the conclusion lightly. But the evidence, he said, showed that if Abrego had not challenged his deportation, the Trump administration would not have brought this case.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Crenshaw’s decision, but it is almost certain to appeal.
Despite Crenshaw’s decision, U.S. immigration authorities have previously signaled they still intend to deport Abrego, 31 — who entered the country illegally from El Salvador as a teen. But their ability to do so has been temporarily blocked by a federal court ruling from Maryland, where Abrego lives with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and children.
The high-profile legal saga that ensnared Abrego since officials deported him to a notorious terrorism prison in El Salvador in March 2025 has, for many critics, come to epitomize what they view as some of the worst aspects of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda.
Abrego, a Maryland father who before his deportation was working as a sheet metal apprentice, has said he came to the United States as a teenager to flee death threats from the Barrio 18 gang. An immigration judge in 2019 barred officials from deporting him to El Salvador because of that gang threat. Multiple courts have found that when the Trump administration re-detained him and sent him to the Central American nation anyway last year, it did so in violation of that order.
Still, for months the administration resisted demands from the courts — including one from the Supreme Court — to facilitate Abrego’s return to the United States. Officials publicly derided him as an “animal,”a gang member and a domestic abuser, accusations he has repeatedly denied.
Abrego was brought back to the country only last June, after federal investigators reopened a previously shuttered investigation and secured a two-count indictment against him.
The case was based on evidence from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee in which authorities alleged Abrego was caught driving nine undocumented immigrants through the state as part of a human-smuggling conspiracy. They opted not to pursue charges at the time.
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