A judge appointed by former President Barack Obama dismissed the charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a Friday court decision.
Abrego Garcia became the center of a deportation debate after President Donald Trump’s administration mistakenly deported him to El Salvador and later defended their actions given his alleged criminal background. U.S. District Judge Waverley D. Crenshaw dropped all the criminal charges brought against Abrego Garcia.
“For the reasons in the accompanying Memorandum Opinion, the motion to dismiss the indictment under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(A)(iv) (Doc. No. 104) is GRANTED,” Crenshaw wrote. “Counts One and Two of the inducement (Doc. No. 3) are DISMISSED.”
Abrego Garcia, who illegally entered the U.S. from El Salvador in 2011, faced federal charges of human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling. The charges stemmed from a traffic stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol in December 2022, where Abrego Garcia was found transporting eight passengers across the country. He allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license and was suspected of trafficking the passengers, though he was let go at the FBI’s request.
The car belonged to an illegal immigrant named Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, who was sent to prison in 2020 for human smuggling.
In December 2019, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed Abrego Garcia’s challenge to an immigration judge’s finding that he is “a verified member of MS-13,” according to documents released by the Department of Justice on April 16. Officers found Abrego Garcia loitering in a Home Depot parking lot on March 28, 2019, wearing “a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations,” which represents a “good standing” with MS-13.
Although an immigration judge ordered for Abrego Garcia to be deported, he received a withholding of removal which allowed him to work in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also released a domestic violence restraining order previously sought by Abrego Garcia’s wife in 2021.
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