Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador earlier this year, arrives for a check-in at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Baltimore, Maryland, US, on Monday, August 25, 2025. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File

A federal judge says he believes the immigrant defendant Kilmar Abrego Garcia , whom the administration wrongly sent to El Salvador, may have been targeted with a criminal charge by the Justice Department this year out of vindictiveness.

“The Government had a significant stake in retaliating against Abrego’s success” suing the Trump administration after his wrongful removal to El Salvador in March, Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. of the Middle District of Tennessee wrote on Friday. “The Court finds Abrego has sufficient

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