A federal judge has cleared Kilmar Abrego Garcia of all charges. The court found that the government’s case against the Maryland man only came after his deportation gained national attention.
Immigration officials deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador last March, despite a court order that he remain in the U.S. over fears of gang violence in his native country. His case became a galvanizing force for critics of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy.
“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,” Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in Friday’s ruling.
Crenshaw found issue with the delay in prosecution. Prosecutors charged Abrego Garcia with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. A federal investigation into Abrego Garcia began two and a half years later, after the Supreme Court ordered he be returned to the U.S.
Since the charges were filed, Crenshaw said that prosecutors have gone back and forth on whether they want to keep him in the U.S. to face trial or deport him without prosecution. A ruling on Abrego Garcia’s motion for pre-trial release dragged out months because of concerns the Trump administration would deport Abrego Garcia to a third country before his trial.
Crenshaw also pointed to one top official in Nashville’s U.S. attorney’s office who resigned after his recommendation not to prosecute Abrego Garcia went unheeded. Ben Schrader left his position as chief of the office’s criminal division just before the indictment was sealed.
“It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
The Justice Department is expected to appeal the ruling.
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