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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, walks outside U.S. District Court on the day of a hearing in his case, in Greenbelt, Maryland, December 22, 2025. (REUTERS file photo/Evelyn Hockstein)
Judge dismisses indictment against Marylander Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Listen to this articleA judge dismissed an indictment against Salvadoran migrant and Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Friday, finding that the Trump administration would not have prosecuted him had he not challenged his deportation.
Abrego Garcia, who entered the United States illegally, became a symbol of the Trump administration’s drive for mass deportations when he was sent to a megaprison in El Salvador in March despite a prior court order barring him from being returned there because of a risk of persecution.
The Trump administration brought Abrego Garciaback to the U.S. in June after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate his return. His return came only after prosecutors secured a criminal indictment charging Abrego Garcia with human smuggling.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty and argued he was being prosecuted in retaliation for suing the government to be returned.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote that the Justice Department only reopened its human smuggling probe stemming from a 2022 traffic stop after Abrego Garcia filed his lawsuit.
“The court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” Crenshaw wrote. “The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego Garcia’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution.”
(Reporting for Reuters by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis.)
