HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge has concluded that the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges may be an illegal retaliation after he successfully sued the Trump administration over his deportation to El Salvador.
The case of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was a construction worker in Maryland, has become a proxy for the partisan struggle over President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration policy and mass deportation agenda.
U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw late Friday granted a request by lawyers for Abrego Garcia and ordered discovery and an evidentiary hearing in Abrego Garcia’s effort to show that the federal human smuggling case against him in Tennessee is illegally retaliatory.
Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia had shown that there is “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be retaliatory.” That evidence included statements by various Trump administration officials and the timeline of the charges being filed.
In his 16-page ruling, Crenshaw noted that many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern.” Most notably, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche hinted on a Fox News program after Abrego Garcia was charged in June that the prosecution might be linked to his successful legal fight.
Abrego Garcia was indicted on May 21 and charged on June 6, the day he was brought back from a prison in El Salvador. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently being held in Pennsylvania.
If convicted in the Tennessee case, federal officials have indicated that he would again face deportation. Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia's legal struggles are compounded by a previous ruling that denied his bid for asylum, despite threats to his safety in El Salvador.
His attorneys argue that the current legal actions constitute retaliation for his previous success in contesting the Trump administration's deportation policy. They have condemned the charges as part of an effort to punish him for exercising his legal rights.
Abrego Garcia has expressed that he suffered abuse during his imprisonment in El Salvador, further complicating his legal situation.
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