SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A judge in Nashville yesterday dismissed criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He's the Salvadoran immigrant the Trump administration wrongly deported last year. The federal judge in the case described the Trump administration's criminal charges as an abuse of prosecuting power. Marianna Bacallao is with member station WPLN and joins us. Marianna, thanks so much for being with us.
MARIANNA BACALLAO, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: And remind us, please, what were the charges standing against Abrego Garcia?
BACALLAO: The Justice Department had charged him with human smuggling around this time last year after Abrego Garcia had won his deportation case. That was when the Supreme Court ordered that he be returned to the U.S. after the government deported him despite a court order to keep him in the country over fears of gang violence in his native El Salvador. When he got back, Abrego Garcia was immediately taken into custody.
Those criminal charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop here in Tennessee. In body-camera footage played for the court, Abrego Garcia can be seen driving an SUV with nine other men. Prosecutors pointed to that as evidence of human smuggling, alleging that Abrego Garcia was paid to drive people who had crossed the border into Texas.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers argued that the government's criminal case was retaliation because of the embarrassment it caused the Trump administration. After he won his deportation case, he became a sort galvanizing force for critics of the president's hard-line immigration policy. His lawyers asked the court to dismiss the charges under a vindictive prosecution claim.
SIMON: And the judge apparently agreed.
BACALLAO: I would say yes and no, but it's more yes and maybe. Essentially, the court found that there was a presumption of vindictive prosecution. That means not enough evidence for it to be definite that the government's actions were a form of retaliation, but enough to drop the charges.
In his ruling, Judge Waverly Crenshaw took issue with the timeline in particular. So again, Abrego Garcia was pulled over in 2022, but the government didn't file charges against him until nearly 2 1/2 years later, when it became clear the Trump administration had to bring him back to the U.S. At that point, according to internal memos from the Justice Department, the case became top priority for the DOJ. And one prosecutor high up in Nashville's U.S. attorney's office asked the DOJ not to prosecute and ended up resigning in protest.
SIMON: Marianna, you've been covering this case since last year. Did you see any signs the judge would rule this way?
BACALLAO: Judge Crenshaw asked tough questions of both sides in court, but he seemed skeptical of prosecutors going back and forth on whether they wanted to keep Abrego Garcia in the U.S. to face trial or just deport him. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were parked outside the courthouse for most of the hearings. A decision on where he would go pending trial dragged out for months because the DOJ said they had no control over what ICE would do and whether he would be deported before trial. The judge also warned the Trump administration not to publicly comment on Abrego Garcia's case as if he had been convicted, since under the law, he's innocent until proven guilty.
SIMON: And how's the government reacted to the ruling?
BACALLAO: The Justice Department plans to appeal. And DHS, in a statement, said this decision is, quote, "naked judicial activism." As for Abrego Garcia, he currently stands to be deported. His lawyers are fighting a separate immigration case that will determine where he's deported.
SIMON: Marianna Bacallao with our friends at member station WPLN in Nashville, thanks so much.
BACALLAO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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