A federal judge on Friday dismissed the criminal case against the immigrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, ruling that the Trump administration had brought human smuggling charges against him as part of a vindictive effort to punish him for challenging his wrongful deportation to El Salvador last year.
The ruling by the judge, Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., was a stinging rebuke of both the Justice Department and its top official, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. Judge Crenshaw singled out Mr. Blanche for criticism in his 32-page opinion, pointing to statements he had made that prosecutors reawakened a dormant investigation into Mr. Abrego Garcia only after a different judge in Maryland questioned the administration’s decision to deport him — along with scores of other immigrants — to a notorious Salvadoran prison in March 2025.
Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is still fighting the administration’s efforts to expel him from the country, is perhaps the best-known symbol of President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda. And his release from criminal charges because of what Judge Crenshaw called their “vindictive taint” was another blow to Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, which had already been battered by, among other things, the killings of two protesters in Minnesota by federal agents.
Judge Crenshaw opened his ruling by quoting Robert H. Jackson, a former attorney general and Supreme Court justice whose reputation for probity has made him something like the patron saint of federal prosecutors.
“Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second,” Judge Crenshaw wrote. “‘Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.’”
“That,” the judge concluded, “is the situation here.”
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lead lawyer, Sean Hecker, hailed the decision and expressed his gratitude for an “independent judiciary” willing to stand up to the administration.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department,” Mr. Hecker said. “We are so pleased that he is a free man — justifiably so.”
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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