Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia urged U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw to dismiss human smuggling charges against their client, labeling the Department of Justice's explanations as 'legally irrelevant and patently incredible.' The request follows an evidentiary hearing where government witnesses testified about the case's origins. The prosecution emerged after Abrego Garcia's wrongful deportation and court-ordered return.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man deported from Maryland in March 2025 under President Donald Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation, returned to the United States in June 2025 after the Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate his release from El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. The Trump administration admitted the deportation resulted from an 'administrative error' and fired the lawyer who made that acknowledgment. Weeks later, federal prosecutors in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges tied to a 2022 traffic stop investigation that had been closed prior to his deportation battle. Judge Waverly Crenshaw, who found a 'realistic likelihood of vindictiveness,' ordered the evidentiary hearing after noting remarks by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Fox News. Blanche, now acting attorney general following Pam Bondi's dismissal and Trump's former defense lawyer, suggested the charges aimed to bring Abrego Garcia back, not due to a judge's order but a grand jury warrant. Crenshaw ruled these statements 'could be direct evidence of vindictiveness,' linking the prosecution to Abrego Garcia's successful habeas corpus challenge. At the February 26 hearing, the government presented former acting U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire and Homeland Security Investigations special agent Rana Saoud, who claimed they learned of the 2022 incident from an April 2025 Tennessee Star report. The DOJ argued this new evidence rebutted any presumption of vindictiveness. Abrego Garcia's lawyers countered that the witnesses' accounts were implausible, noting McGuire's insistence on independence despite alleged pressure from Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, and Saoud's reliance on a newspaper article. The defense filing highlighted Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward's recent appearance and insisted no non-vindictive explanation exists, aligning with Blanche's public comments on punishing Abrego Garcia for embarrassing the government.
