The Justice Department is seeking to revive its criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, challenging a federal judge’s decision to throw out human smuggling charges against the Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year.
Federal prosecutors filed a brief Monday with the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw erred when he dismissed the charges in May.
Crenshaw had delivered a sharp rebuke to the Justice Department, finding sufficient evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” in the government’s decision to prosecute Abrego Garcia.
The judge concluded that Abrego Garcia likely would not have faced the criminal charges had he not successfully challenged the Trump administration over his 2025 deportation.
Crenshaw stopped short of determining that prosecutors demonstrated “actual vindictiveness,” which carries a higher legal threshold.
The criminal case stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that eventually became the basis for allegations that Abrego Garcia participated in human smuggling.
According to the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security knew about the traffic stop for more than two years before Abrego Garcia’s deportation but only began investigating the matter more aggressively after a court ordered the administration to facilitate his return to the US.
The Trump administration ultimately returned Abrego Garcia after federal prosecutors secured an indictment against him.
Crenshaw also pointed to statements from Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was serving as deputy attorney general at the time, as evidence supporting the finding of presumptive vindictiveness.
The Justice Department is now disputing that conclusion.
In its appeals court filing, prosecutors argued that Blanche’s statements demonstrated a legitimate law enforcement rationale rather than an attempt to punish Abrego Garcia for successfully challenging the government.
The statements reflected a “normal assessment of the societal interest in punishment,” rather than an “improper penalty,” prosecutors argued.
The government said officials were attempting to “protect the public and confirm its prior assertions about Abrego’s criminal activity.”
Prosecutors additionally argued that even if Blanche harbored animosity toward Abrego Garcia, the relevant decision-maker was then-Acting US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire, who brought the charges, per the New York Post.
Crenshaw previously rejected that argument.
His ruling cited involvement from senior Justice Department officials, including communications between McGuire and Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, in concluding that the prosecution was tainted.
Abrego Garcia, 31, is a Salvadoran citizen who entered the US illegally as a teenager and later settled in Maryland, where he has an American wife and child.
An immigration judge ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador because he had established a “well founded fear” of persecution by a gang that targeted his family. He was permitted to remain and work in the US under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision but did not receive lawful permanent residency.
The Trump administration has since explored deporting him to a third country, including Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Liberia.
Abrego Garcia has said he would accept deportation to Costa Rica, which has indicated it would accept him, but the US government has not agreed to send him there.
He is separately challenging potential deportation to Liberia in federal court in Maryland.
The Justice Department’s latest appeal now asks the 6th Circuit to overturn Crenshaw’s dismissal and allow the federal human smuggling prosecution against Abrego Garcia to move forward once again.
