Justice Department appeals to reinstate Ábrego García smuggling charges

Judge had called Ábrego prosecution ‘vindictive in nature’

The Justice Department’s Monday filing before the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals asks the appellate court to reverse a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly David Crenshaw Jr. and reinstate a human smuggling indictment against Kilmar Ábrego García. The Nashville-based judge had dismissed the charges, citing “presumptive vindictiveness” in the timing and circumstances of the renewed prosecution.

The DoJ accused Crenshaw of “an unwarranted intrusion” into executive authority and argued that career prosecutors had brought the case based on evidence gathered during a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. “The decision to seek an indictment against Ábrego García 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 Ábrego García had committed the offenses charged,” the department said in a statement describing its appellate brief.

In his May dismissal, Crenshaw pointed to the timing of the indictment, public statements from recently confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche, and sustained oversight by other senior Justice Department officials as having “thoroughly tainted” the case. The judge ruled that those factors established “presumptive vindictiveness” in the decision to prosecute.

The DoJ stated in its brief that “the evidence in the district court proved that charges were brought against Ábrego García because, in the view of career prosecutors, the evidence conclusively established that he had committed a serious crime, and not for any vindictive motive.” The department argued that Crenshaw’s order “marks a dramatic expansion of the power of courts to dismiss serious criminal charges based on subjective assessments of a prosecutor’s motivations.”

Attorneys for Ábrego called the DoJ appeal “flat wrong” in comments to CBS News. “The indictment and prosecution of Ábrego García was, in fact, vindictive; the evidence before the district court established just that; and the proof was clear notwithstanding the DoJ’s refusal to call the actual decision makers, including AG Blanche, to testify under oath,” they said in a statement.

The defense team added that “this case was initiated vindictively and on instructions from the White House after our client successfully won his Supreme Court case,” referring to Ábrego’s successful challenge to his March 2025 deportation to El Salvador, which had been carried out without criminal charges in either country.

Ama Frimpong, chief of services at We Are Casa, an immigration advocacy group representing Ábrego, said in May that the prosecution was “nothing more than a political vendetta.” Frimpong said the Trump administration had “brazenly attempted to weaponize the criminal legal system” against Ábrego to “punish him for exposing their unlawful actions.”

Ábrego was sent to the Cecot mega-prison in El Salvador following his March 2025 deportation. He was returned to the United States three months later under a Supreme Court order, having never been arrested or charged with a crime in either the United States or El Salvador, according to court records.

The human smuggling indictment stems from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. The specific allegation at issue and the circumstances that led the traffic stop to surface human smuggling allegations were not detailed in Monday’s filing.

Ábrego, who is 30, fled to the United States at age 16 to escape gang extortion in El Salvador, according to court records. He settled in Maryland, where his brother is a US citizen, though Ábrego did not have authorization to remain in the country. He lived there with his wife and children, all US citizens, and was complying with regular Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins when he was detained and deported at the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

His case has drawn sustained attention because Ábrego has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling will determine whether the human smuggling case can proceed.