DOJ seeks to reinstate charges of smuggling immigrants against Kilmar Abrego García

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the charges of for-profit human trafficking and conspiracy against Kilmar Abrego García, the Salvadoran citizen whose case became one of the main focal points of the immigration dispute under the Trump Administration.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee filed its brief on Monday, August 17 with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting that the May decision dismissing the charges against Abrego García be overturned.

According to the official statement from the Department of Justice, prosecutors maintain that the decision to prosecute him was made by career prosecutors based on the available evidence and not as retaliation for his legal battle against the government.

"The indictment and prosecution of Abrego García [...] were not vindictive," stated the Attorney General's Office, which stated that the charges stemmed from the prosecutors' conviction that there was sufficient evidence to prove the alleged crimes.

The DOJ challenges the judge's decision

Federal Judge Waverly Crenshaw had dismissed the case on May 22, finding that there was a "presumption of vindictiveness" in the government's actions. Crenshaw concluded that the criminal proceedings would not have been initiated had it not been for the lawsuit in which Abrego García challenged his deportation to El Salvador.

The DOJ now rejects that reasoning and argues in its 71-page appeal that the district court misapplied the precedents of the Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit. For the government, the ruling represents an unjustified expansion of the courts' authority to scrutinize prosecutors' internal motivations.

Prosecutors further insist that, after the courts ordered Abrego García's return to the United States, the investigation was reopened and new evidence was obtained that led a grand jury to issue the indictment.