Judge dismisses charges against Kilmar Ábrego García

Crenshaw, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, said the timing and other evidence showed a “likeliness of vindictiveness.” The Justice Department reopened a three-year-old investigation days after the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the United States. The judge said prosecutors’ purported “new evidence” could have been found earlier through due diligence.

Crenshaw wrote that the government would not have brought the case absent Ábrego García’s lawsuit challenging his removal. The executive branch had closed its investigation into a November 2022 traffic stop, he noted, and reopened it only after Ábrego García vindicated his rights. Crenshaw said the case appeared to have been reverse-engineered to justify the deportation, which sent Ábrego García to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

Sean Hecker, Ábrego García’s attorney, welcomed the decision, saying his client was “freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges.” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called it a major victory but cautioned that Ábrego García’s situation remained unresolved: the administration is still seeking to deport him to Uganda, although he has said he would accept deportation to Costa Rica.

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman described the ruling as an “extraordinary rebuke” of the Trump Justice Department and said it referred nearly 30 times to acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche’s role. Journalist Nathan Newman also praised Ábrego García for standing firm against federal pressure.