Kilmar Abrego Garcia wants criminal case thrown out over Trump administration's 'vindictive' prosecution

Source: The Independent

Wednesday 20 August 2025 00:06 BST


Kilmar Abrego Garcia is asking a federal judge to throw out a criminal case against him, claiming he was “singled out” by President Donald Trump’s administration for “having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice” after he was wrongfully deported to a brutal prison in his home country.

Despite admitting in court that he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March, government lawyers and top administration officials spent weeks insisting Abrego Garcia would never be allowed back into the country following a high-profile lawsuit challenging his arrest and removal.

He was abruptly flown back to the United States in June to face a criminal indictment in Tennessee, where a grand jury indicted him on federal smuggling charges. Prosecutors cannot abuse the law to “punish someone for exercising his constitutional rights,” lawyers for Abrego Garcia wrote on Tuesday. “Yet that is exactly what has happened here.”

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government,” they added. “It is obvious why. And it is not because of the seriousness of his alleged conduct.”

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kilmar-abrego-garcia-trump-criminal-case-dismiss-b2810680.html