(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has asked an appeals court to reinstate the criminal human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
In May, a federal judge granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that the federal government failed to rebut Abrego Garcia’s “presumption of vindictiveness.”
“Because the presumption of vindictiveness remains unrebutted, the indictment must be dismissed,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in May.
In a brief filed Monday, attorneys for the DOJ urged an appellate court to overturn Judge Crenshaw’s May ruling, arguing that the decision to indict Abrego Garcia was supported by “legitimate reasons.”
“The decision to seek an indictment against Abrego Garcia for human smuggling was made by career prosecutors based on the evidence, the law, and their firm belief that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Abrego Garcia had committed the offenses charged,” the DOJ said in a press release. “The indictment and prosecution of Abrego Garcia in the Middle District of Tennessee was not vindictive, and the evidence before the district court established that it was not.”
Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March of last year to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to a fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. last June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, after which U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis released him from ICE detention while he awaited trial.
In May, Judge Crenshaw highlighted the involvement of high-ranking DOJ officials in the case, pointing to public statements made by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to conclude that the government could not justify its sudden shift from wanting to deport Abrego Garcia to prosecuting him.
In its filing Monday, the DOJ argued that Blanche’s public comments in an interview regarding the deportation case “do not reflect a vindictive motive.”
“At a minimum, nothing in his interview supports an inference that the United States pursued charges ‘solely’ to retaliate against Abrego for his civil suit,” the DOJ argued. “The district court’s contrary reasoning — which did not even address the full quotation — is illogical and clearly erroneous.”
The criminal charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop disclosed in an April 2025 press release issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which touted a “bombshell investigative report” alleging that Abrego Garcia was a suspected human trafficker. He was not charged or arrested during the traffic stop, which lasted for more than an hour.
“Instead of investigating the November 2022 traffic stop to identify who was responsible for the human smuggling, Blanche started the investigation to implicate Abrego,” Judge Crenshaw wrote in May. “He did so to justify the Executive Branch’s decision to remove him to El Salvador.”
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