US judge tosses case against wrongly deported Salvadorean man Abrego Garcia

The indictment was ‘an abuse of prosecuting power’ against a man at the centre of a row over Trump’s migrant crackdown, the judge ruled

A US federal judge dismissed a criminal case on Friday filed against a Salvadorean man at the centre of a row over US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on migrants.

US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw ruled that the indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia by the Trump administration’s Justice Department was “an abuse of prosecuting power”.

Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident married to an American woman, was among more than 200 people sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison in March of last year.

The Salvadorean man had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.

Justice Department lawyers admitted that Abrego Garcia had been wrongly deported due to an “administrative error”. After his return to the US in June, Abrego Garcia was detained again in the southern state of Tennessee and charged with human smuggling.

Abrego Garcia had sought to have those charges tossed on the grounds they were a vindictive prosecution brought because of his legal efforts to avoid deportation.