Obama-appointed 'activist' judge tosses human trafficking case against illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Kilmar Abrego Garcia mug shot.

A federal judge in Nashville on Friday threw out the Justice Department's human trafficking case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal immigrant at the center of a deportation dispute last year. 

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw ruled the case brought by the Department of Justice was a "selective or vindictive prosecution," granting Abrego Garcia's attorneys' motion to have the case dismissed. Crenshaw argued that had the U.S. not been forced to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. after deporting him, the human trafficking charges never would've been brought against him.

Crenshaw has been a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee since 2015 when he was, not surprisingly, appointed by then-President Obama. The ruling came late on a Friday afternoon ahead of a major U.S. holiday weekend. "Another activist judge has placed politics above public safety," a spokesperson for the Justice Department told CBS News. "The judge's order is wrong and dangerous, and we will appeal."

The charges against Abrego Garcia, an MS-13 gang member from El Salvador, stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop in which Abrego Garcia had been pulled over for speeding. Cops said his vehicle was packed with nine people, but he was allowed to leave with only a warning at the time. Police body cam footage from that traffic stop can be seen below.

Abrego Garcia illegally entered the U.S., crossing the southern border, in 2011 or 2012. He eventually ended up in Maryland. In 2021, he was accused of domestic violence by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez, who said he punched and scratched her to the point that she was left with bruises, according to the protective order she filed at the time in Prince George's County.

The U.S. tried to deport Abrego Garcia in 2025 after Trump returned to office, sending him to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. The media erroneously referred to him as a "Maryland man," stoking outrage on the left about the case, and a judge eventually ruled U.S. authorities must return Abrego Garcia and free him from custody. The government then began building the human trafficking case. 

"Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a violent criminal illegal alien and MS-13 gang member. He belongs behind bars and off American soil," the Department of Homeland Security has said.