Trump administration appeals dismissal of criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

“The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution,” Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, wrote in the opinion.

The Trump administration notified the court of its intent to appeal in June.

In an opening brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District Monday, the administration argues that the district court’s presumption of vindictiveness was “improper” and the charges brought against Abrego were “supported by legitimate prosecutorial concerns surrounding the defendant’s return to the country.”

Crenshaw’s ruling “marks a dramatic expansion of the power of courts to dismiss serious criminal charges based on subjective assessments of a prosecutor’s motivations and is an unwarranted intrusion into the Executive’s powers and responsibility to protect the public,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Tennessee stated in a news release.

Abrego entered the United States illegally as a teen after fleeing from El Salvador, where he said he feared gang violence. A 2019 order from an immigration judge barred his deportation back to the country. Abrego was deported to El Salvador in March 2025, a move a federal attorney later admitted was made in error.

Abrego returned to the U.S. in June 2025 and was immediately sent to a Tennessee detention center, where he was held on a two-count human smuggling indictment. The charges stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding by state troopers in rural Tennessee. Federal attorneys alleged that Abrego served as a driver in an ongoing conspiracy to transport immigrants without legal status throughout the United States. Abrego pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He remains free while his immigration case continues in Maryland.

In Nashville, a federal judge dismisses indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Following Crenshaw’s dismissal of the criminal charges, national watchdog group Campaign for Government Accountability filed a complaint with the New York Bar requesting an investigation into Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s conduct related to Abrego’s case. A Department of Justice spokesperson called this complaint “baseless” in an emailed statement to the Lookout in May.

Crenshaw’s opinion honed in on the reopening of the traffic stop case against Abrego, and the scrutiny applied to federal prosecutor Rob McGuire’s handling of the case by Associate Deputy Attorney General Akash Singh. Singh was working in the office of Blanche, who was serving as deputy attorney general at the time. 

Blanche was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General in early August.

Singh pushed for Abrego to be charged, calling it a “top priority for us” in an email to McGuire in early April and closely monitored the case’s progress, reviewing drafts of complaints, according to findings detailed in Crenshaw’s opinion. 

“Blanche’s now unrequited public statements tying the reopened investigation to Abrego’s successful lawsuit taints the investigation with a vindictive motive,” Crenshaw wrote, and McGuire’s testimony to the contrary was “subjective” and did not rebut the presumption of vindictiveness, though the court did not find sufficient evidence of actual vindictiveness.

In its Monday filing, the administration argued that the finding of presumptive vindictiveness requires the prosecutor — in this case, McGuire — to have a “personal stake” in Abrego’s removal lawsuit. 

“It is undisputed that McGuire himself had no stake in Abrego’s removal suit, and there is no evidence — despite the district court’s (unfounded) authorization of extensive discovery — that anyone else in the government pressured or induced McGuire to charge Abrego,” the filing states. “Second, there was nothing unreasonable about indicting Abrego for the serious crimes charged.”

Anita Wadhwani contributed.

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