DOJ to Appeal Dismissal of Human Smuggling Charges Against Abrego-Garcia
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it plans to appeal a federal judge’s recent decision to dismiss human smuggling charges against Kilmer Abrego Garcia. Garcia had entered the U.S. illegally and was believed to have connections with the MS-13 gang. The DOJ labeled the judge’s ruling as “wrong and dangerous.”
U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. dismissed two counts against Abrego-Garcia in Tennessee, stating that the Justice Department’s actions constituted “retaliatory and selective prosecution,” which infringed upon the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Abrego-Garcia was alleged to have conspired to smuggle around 600 undocumented immigrants into the U.S. annually from 2016 to 2025, according to testimony from cooperating witnesses.
The spokesperson for the DOJ remarked, “Another activist judge has put politics over public safety. The judge’s order is wrong and dangerous, so we will appeal.” This case originally stemmed from a traffic stop in Tennessee in November 2022, and it involved potential links to MS-13 and human trafficking.
Things took a complicated turn when the executive branch deported Abrego-Garcia to El Salvador in March 2025 due to an alleged “administrative error.” He later filed a lawsuit against the government, which the Supreme Court ultimately upheld, mandating that his return to the U.S. be facilitated.
Crenshaw, who was appointed during the Obama administration, noted that just days after the Supreme Court ruling, the Department of Homeland Security unexpectedly reopened its investigation into Abrego-Garcia’s traffic stop from 2022.
An internal memorandum indicated that top officials at the DOJ, under Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, pursued the prosecution aggressively. In a detailed opinion, Crenshaw concluded that the DOJ’s abrupt shift from closing the case to prosecuting Abrego-Garcia was a direct response to his success in the civil case.
The judge characterized this as an “abuse of prosecutorial power,” asserting that the government would not have pursued charges had Abrego-Garcia’s lawsuit not triumphed. Consequently, Crenshaw formally dismissed the charges and lifted the conditions regarding Abrego-Garcia’s release.
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who had previously met with Abrego-Garcia in El Salvador after his deportation, welcomed the court’s decision. He stated, “Today, a federal judge made clear what we have known for years: that the Department of Justice was engaged in a relentless prosecution of Kilmer Abrego Garcia. This decision is a powerful repudiation of President Trump’s lawless Justice Department and a victory for the constitutional rights of all our countrymen.”
