A federal judge from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee has delivered a rebuke to the Trump administration’s Justice Department, ruling Friday that criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia may constitute vindictive prosecution in retaliation for his successful lawsuit challenging his wrongful deportation to El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. granted Abrego Garcia’s motion for discovery and an evidentiary hearing, finding that “the totality of events creates a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that there is a ‘realistic likelihood of vindictiveness’.”

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who worked in construction in Maryland, fled his home country due to extortion and death threats from gangs. He was granted withholding of removal to El Salvador under federal law, received legal work authorization, and lived peacefully in Maryland for years without criminal charges.

The case stems from a November 30, 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding while allegedly transporting several Spanish-speaking men across state lines. Notably, he was not issued a traffic ticket and was sent on his way. The Tennessee Highway Patrol referred the matter to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which conducted a dormant investigation for over two years before closing it on March 12, 2025.

Just three days after HSI closed its investigation, on March 15, 2025, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in what officials later acknowledged was an “administrative error.”

This deportation violated a 2019 court order that explicitly forbade his removal to El Salvador.

Nine days later, Abrego Garcia filed a federal lawsuit in Maryland challenging his wrongful deportation and seeking an injunction to facilitate his return to the United States. In a series of unanimous decisions, the U.S. District Court for Maryland, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court all ruled in his favor, with the Supreme Court noting that the government acknowledged the removal was illegal.

Judge Crenshaw identified several concerning patterns in the government’s conduct:

Timeline of Retaliation: HSI reopened its investigation into Abrego Garcia just days after the Supreme Court affirmed his right to return to the United States – only 24 days after he filed his civil lawsuit and merely seven days after his Supreme Court victory.

Unusual Prosecution Timeline: Crenshaw noted that among all federal cases involving traffic stops in the Sixth Circuit from 2010 to 2025, only Abrego Garcia’s charges were filed significantly after the incident.

Inflammatory Public Statements: Throughout the legal proceedings, high-ranking officials made numerous public statements about Abrego Garcia. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called him a “gang member,” “violent criminal,” and “terrorist.” Attorney General Pam Bondi labeled him a “known gang member.” On the day of his arrest, Noem posted on social media that he was “a known MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, and serial domestic abuser.”

The most damaging evidence came from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s television appearance on Fox News the day of Abrego Garcia’s arrest. Blanche explicitly linked the criminal prosecution to the civil lawsuit, stating that the government began “investigating” Abrego Garcia after “a judge in Maryland questioned” the government’s deportation decision and found it “had no right to deport him.”

Judge Crenshaw called these “remarkable statements” that “could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego’s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights to bring suit against the Executive Official Defendants, rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct.”

The judge noted that this could constitute direct evidence of vindictiveness, referencing legal precedent that suggests “actual confession by the prosecutor” represents the clearest case of prosecutorial vindictiveness.

Under federal law, defendants can challenge prosecutions as vindictive if they can show that charges were filed to punish them for exercising constitutional or statutory rights. While such motions are notoriously difficult to win, Judge Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia had presented sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation.

The government now bears the burden of rebutting the presumption of vindictiveness with “objective, on-the-record explanations” such as the discovery of previously unknown evidence. Judge Crenshaw acknowledged that discovery might reveal legitimate reasons for the prosecution unrelated to the Maryland lawsuit, noting that “it may well be that no fire will be discovered under all the smoke.”

However, the ruling allows Abrego Garcia’s legal team to conduct discovery into the Trump administration’s decision-making process, potentially including testimony from government officials. If they can gather sufficient evidence to prove vindictive prosecution, it could result in dismissal of all charges against him

In another case, Abrego Garcia suffered a setback on Wednesday when a Baltimore immigration judge denied his bid to reopen his asylum case, though he has 30 days to appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Additionally, he has been transferred from a Virginia facility to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where his attorneys have raised concerns about reported assaults, inadequate medical care, and insufficient food at the facility.