Federal judge Waverly D Crenshaw has canceled the politically-motivated trial of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a December 23 court order. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran construction worker, father, and Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) union member from Maryland targeted by the ultra-reactionary Trump administration in its terror campaign against immigrant workers.
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, where the servants of US imperialism tortured him. After a court order and following protests demanding his return, including from his union, the Trump administration brought him back to the United States in June, then quickly issued an arrest warrant against him on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. Abrego Garcia has denied these allegations. Judge Crenshaw stated in the 12/23 order that Abrego Garcia had enough evidence to warrant a hearing seeking to dismiss the charges as selective and vindictive prosecution and punishment for the Justice Department’s failed deportation, scheduled for 01/28.
A newly unsealed order in this case reveals that Abrego Garcia’s prosecution was deemed “a top priority” over emails within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General shortly after being deported against court order, which contradicts the Trump administration’s claims that the decision to prosecute Abrego Garcia was made by local prosecutors without outside influence, and shows how this case has been used to test expanded executive power and legal impunity for repression of immigrant workers.
In the 12/23 order, Judge Crenshaw said that some documents produced by the prosecutor in Tennessee showed he “was not a solitary decision-maker, but in fact reported to others in the DOJ” in the decision to charge Abrego Garcia with human smuggling.
The human smuggling charges stem from a traffic stop in 2022—Abrego Garcia left the stop with only a warning and no efforts to charge him until April 2025. A Department of Homeland Security agent previously testified that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the US Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration was required to return Abrego Garcia back to the US from El Salvador.
Members of the Trump administration have repeatedly accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13 without presenting evidence, accusations which Abrego Garcia has vehemently denied. Judge Crenshaw has previously expressed that the MS-13 accusations “border on fanciful” and has cast doubts on the evidence for human smuggling.
Photo: SMART union members march in Detroit, MI on International Workers Day, May 1 2025, demanding Abrego Garcia be returned home. Photo retrieved from SMART.
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