Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are asking the federal judge overseeing his criminal case to throw out the human smuggling charges he’s facing, alleging the Justice Department singled him out for prosecution after he challenged his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.
The request made Tuesday to US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville comes several days before Abrego Garcia is expected to be released from criminal custody pending his trial on the federal charges.
The 35-page filing to Crenshaw accuses President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of prosecuting the criminal case as retribution for Abrego Garcia’s protracted legal fight against the government’s deportation of him in mid-March. The Maryland father of three was wrongly deported in violat