A federal judge in the US state of Tennessee on Friday dismissed human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has become a flashpoint in US President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national living in Maryland and married to a US citizen, had been accused of participating in a conspiracy to transport migrants between 2016-25 and of transporting migrants without valid immigration documents during a traffic stop in 2022.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment "for vindictive and selective prosecution," stemming from his successful legal challenge against his deportation to El Salvador.
According to court documents, Abrego Garcia was stopped during a traffic stop in 2022. He was arrested in the US state of Maryland in 2025. Shortly afterward, he was flown to El Salvador despite protections barring his removal, and transferred to a high-security anti-terrorism prison outside the capital.
After a lengthy legal battle, he was returned to the US in June 2025. Subsequently, the investigation against him was reopened, leading to the current lawsuit.
While the court found that there was insufficient evidence of actual revenge, it also ruled that the government had failed to refute this suspicion. The court also spoke of "an abuse of prosecuting power." According to the court, the government would not have initiated criminal proceedings against Abrego Garcia had he remained outside the US.
Abrego Garcia’s case has become emblematic of a broader controversy surrounding Trump’s harsh approach to deportations, particularly over whether affected individuals receive adequate due process.
