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On Friday, Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed a human smuggling indictment against Kilmar Abrego García due to selective and vindictive prosecution.
Abrego, a Maryland man born in El Salvador, has long been considered a symbol of the Trump administration’s deportation policy. He came to the U.S. without papers as a teenager, fleeing threats from gangs in San Salvador. In March 2025, he was illegally deported to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, returning a month later due to a Supreme Court order after he filed a lawsuit. As he returned to the U.S., he was charged with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Cookeville by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. He wasn’t charged with any crimes at the time of the stop.
The dismissal had been coming since a Feb. 26 hearing. Last year, Crenshaw found that there was some evidence that the government’s prosecution had been selective and vindictive, or the result of possible retaliation. As such, the burden rested with the government to disprove that notion at the hearing. Only two witnesses were called, including Rob McGuire, the acting U.S. Attorney at the time of the indictment.
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The Maryland man at the center of national media attention is heading to his home state
“I’m not going to do something I don’t believe in just to keep my job,” McGuire repeatedly insisted when the defense implied that, after seeing many co-workers fired, he was hoping to keep his job by following administration orders and indicting Abrego. He said throughout the hearing that he’d acted alone in pursuing the indictment, not on orders from above.
Crenshaw begins his opinion with a warning: “Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second.” He described McGuire’s testimony as “choppy,” and he disagreed with the government’s argument that it had discovered new evidence to prosecute Abrego for the 2022 traffic stop and with McGuire’s assertions that he’d acted alone.
Crenshaw also cites “objective evidence of pressure from DOJ” and public statements made by then-U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in which he “stated that the Executive Branch began ‘investigating’ Abrego after a judge in Maryland ‘questioned’ the Executive Branch’s decision to deport him.”
“What the Government has chosen not to address is as telling as what it has,” Crenshaw writes, referring to the fact that the government’s post-hearing brief only mentioned Blanche once.
“The evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” Crenshaw wrote at the end of the opinion.
Magistrate says improperly deported man could be released from U.S. custody, but the Trump administration may still attempt to deport him
“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. 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.”
Crenshaw’s decision is a landmark ruling in a winding case. The government could still file an interlocutory appeal, and one lawyer who spoke to the Banner in February expected this case to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department," reads a statement from Abrego's lawyers. "We are so pleased that he is a free man. Justifiably so. As this Administration continually chips away at our democracy, we remain grateful for an independent judiciary that will dispassionately apply binding precedent to the facts."
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
