Justice Department attempting to revive criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The government is appealing the May ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw that threw out charges of human smuggling against the Salvadoran national.
The US Justice Department is appealing a May ruling by US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw that dismissed human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national. According to the Associated Press, Judge Crenshaw's ruling was highly critical of the Justice Department, describing the case against Abrego Garcia as an "abuse of prosecuting power".
Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison in 2025, and only returned to the US after the government secured a criminal indictment against him. Judge Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia would not have faced charges if he had not successfully sued the government over his deportation. The judge did not find evidence of "actual vindictiveness" but did find enough evidence of "presumptive vindictiveness".
The Justice Department is now pushing to revive the charges against Abrego Garcia, arguing that Judge Crenshaw erred in his ruling. The case has been described as an embarrassment for the Trump administration, which has faced accusations of targeting defendants for political purposes.
Brief written by urgent.news from PBS NewsHour, Associated Press, Winnipeg Free Press, CBS News — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
