Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are asking the federal judge overseeing his criminal case to throw out the human smuggling expenses he’s dealing with, alleging the Justice Department singled him out for prosecution after he challenged his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this yr.
The request made Tuesday to US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville comes a number of days earlier than Abrego Garcia is expected to be released from criminal custody pending his trial on the federal expenses.
The 35-page submitting to Crenshaw accuses President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of prosecuting the criminal case as retribution for Abrego Garcia’s protracted authorized combat in opposition to the federal government’s deportation of him in mid-March. The Maryland father of three was wrongly deported in violation of an earlier courtroom order that expressly forbade his removing to El Salvador.
“Mr. Abrego responded to the government’s shocking, illegal conduct by filing a lawsuit. Rather than fix its mistake and return Mr. Abrego to the United States, the government fought back at every level of the federal court system,” his attorneys wrote within the submitting. “And at every level, Mr. Abrego won. This case results from the government’s concerted effort to punish him for having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice.”
The lawyers are asking Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, to throw out the 2 criminal counts introduced in opposition to him earlier this yr primarily based on their assertion that he’s the topic of “selective or vindictive prosecution.”
“Those motions are infrequently made and rarely succeed. But if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case. The government is attempting to use this case – and this Court – to punish Mr. Abrego for successfully fighting his unlawful removal. That is a constitutional violation of the most basic sort,” they wrote in courtroom papers. “The Indictment must be dismissed.”
The submitting factors to statements made by numerous administration officers – from Trump to Attorney General Pam Bondi – to make the case that his prosecution is meant to justify “officials’ false claims that deporting him to El Salvador had been the right thing to do.”
And it factors out that the site visitors cease that’s on the middle of the federal government’s case in opposition to him occurred years earlier – a reality his lawyers declare “is sufficient to establish discriminatory effect.”
“In total, it took the government 903 days after the traffic stop in this case – on November 30, 2022 – to obtain an indictment on May 21, 2025,” they wrote, including that they couldn’t discover any comparable case throughout the federal circuit that hears appeals arising from Tennessee and a number of different states.
Abrego Garcia’s trial is about to start in January 2026.
Last month, Crenshaw declined to undo a separate judge’s choice to let Abrego Garcia stay free whereas he awaits trial. But he’s remained behind bars after the Justice of the Peace judge in his case paused her launch order for a month. That pause is predicted to finish later this week.
Meanwhile, the federal judge in Maryland overseeing the case Abrego Garica and his household introduced in opposition to officers to safe his return to the US from El Salvador has barred the administration from rapidly deporting him once more as soon as he’s launched from criminal custody.
That ruling from US District Judge Paula Xinis, additionally an Obama appointee, is supposed to do two issues: Restore Abrego Garcia to the immigration place he was in earlier than his deportation in mid-March and guarantee his due course of rights aren’t violated once more ought to officers attempt to take away him from the US a second time.