The judge said the human smuggling investigation was reopened after the Salvadoran national filed a lawsuit against his deportation.
Published May 22, 2026
A U.S. judge dismissed the charges against Kilmer Abrego Garcia, ruling that he would not have been prosecuted had he not contested his deportation.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw said the Justice Department reopened its first human-smuggling investigation stemming from a 2022 traffic stop after Salvadoran national Abrego Garcia filed a lawsuit.
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“The court does not reach its conclusions lightly,” Crenshaw wrote.
“The objective evidence here shows that the government would not have brought this prosecution had Mr. Abrego’s lawsuit seeking his removal to El Salvador not been successful.”
Abrego García became a symbol of President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration last year, when she was sent to El Salvador’s giant prison despite a previous court barring her return to the country due to the risk of persecution.
The Trump administration returned Abrego-Garcia to the United States in June of that year, but only after prosecutors secured criminal charges of human smuggling and smuggling conspiracy.
Mr. Abrego-Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the allegations, saying he was charged in retaliation for suing the government from El Salvador seeking his return to the United States.
In his ruling dismissing the charges, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the “presumption of revenge.”
The Department of Homeland Security was already aware of the traffic stop two years ago and the case had ended when Abrego-Garcia was deported, but the case was reopened only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to deport him from El Salvador.
Mr. Abrego-Garcia’s deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order that granted him protection from deportation to his home country after a judge determined he was at risk from gangs targeting his family.
Although he and his family returned to the United States, Trump officials said Abrego-Garcia could not remain in the country and vowed to deport him back to a third country with which he has no ties.
