The Justice Department on Monday filed a notice of appeal against a federal judge’s ruling that dismissed human trafficking charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador in 2025 before being returned to the United States.
Robert McGuire, the federal prosecutor in Tennessee, filed the notice on June 23, according to court records. The appeal challenges Judge Waverly Crenshaw’s May decision to dismiss the case as an abuse of prosecutorial power.
In his ruling, Crenshaw wrote that “objective evidence” showed the government would not have brought the charges if Abrego Garcia had not won his lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador. “The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” Crenshaw wrote. “The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution.”
Abrego Garcia was deported in 2025 to the CECOT detention facility in El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration judge’s order barring his removal to his native country. After months of pressure from advocates and legal challenges, the administration returned him to the United States. Federal prosecutors then charged him with human trafficking related to a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that had not resulted in any charges at the time.
“The evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” Crenshaw wrote in his May ruling dismissing the case.
Abrego Garcia is also fighting a separate deportation effort in Maryland. A judge there has blocked the government from re-arresting him as that case proceeds.