Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears in the U.S. District Court for Maryland on Monday, December 22, 2025, in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
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Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
A federal judge this week threw out the trial of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was wrongly deported, and ordered a hearing on whether the prosecution was vindictive in its human smuggling case against him.
Abrego Garcia became the center of the immigration debate after the Trump administration deported him to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March. Facing growing public pressure and a court order, the Trump administration returned him to the US in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on charges of human smuggling in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia has denied the charges and said prosecutors are prosecuting him vindictively and selectively. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. wrote Tuesday that Abrego Garcia had enough evidence to hold a hearing on the topic, which Crenshaw set for Jan. 28.
At that hearing, prosecutors will have to explain their reasons for charging Abrego Garcia, Crenshaw wrote, and if they fail to do so, the charges could be dropped.
When Abrego Garcia was pulled over in 2022, there were nine passengers in the car and officers were discussing their suspicions of contraband among themselves. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving only with a warning.
A Department of Homeland Security agent previously testified that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration had to work to remove Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where he had been deported.
A few years earlier, Abrego Garcia had been protected from deportation to his homeland after a judge found he was in danger from a gang there that had been targeting his family. The order allowed Abrego Garcia, who has an American wife and child, to live and work in the United States under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Members of President Donald Trump's administration have accused Abrego Garcia of being an MS-13 gang member, but he has vehemently denied the accusations and has no criminal record.
Abrego Garcia's lawyer and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
