President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to overturn a lower court’s decision dismissing the human trafficking indictment against Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant at the centre of a wrongful deportation case.
“This court should reverse,” the government added in its filing on Monday.
It argued that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee “gravely erred” in its ruling that the charges against Mr Garcia were brought for retaliatory purposes. It also contended that the charges were legitimate, based on evidence investigators obtained.
“In doing so, the court violated the principle that a prosecutor must have a ‘personal stake’ in the defendant’s protected conduct for the presumption of vindictiveness to apply,” it said.
The development is the latest in the U.S. government’s case against Mr Garcia, who was initially arrested alongside three others by local police in Putnam County in 2022 over allegations that he was a member of the notorious M-13 gang. The government did not press charges, but it said the case remained under investigation for years.
The case took a new turn on March 12 last year after immigration authorities arrested and deported him to El Salvador, where he was detained in a maximum-security prison, despite an immigration judge granting him “withholding of removal” status.
The Trump administration would later admit that his deportation was an “administrative error” after his wife filed lawsuits against his removal from the U.S.
In a ruling on April 4, 2025, Judge Paula Xinis of the Federal District Court in Maryland sharply rebuked the Trump administration officials and ordered the return of the immigrant to the U.S. Following this, federal prosecutors indicted him for human smuggling.
On May 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the case and held that Mr Garcia was prosecuted for political reasons after successfully challenging his deportation to El Salvador.
However, the Trump government argued that prosecutors filed charges based on “strong additional evidence of Abrego’s guilt” and “not for any vindictive motive,” and urged the court to reinstate the case.
“Instead, the evidence in the district court proved that charges were brought against Abrego Garcia because, in the view of career prosecutors, the evidence conclusively established that he had committed a serious crime, and not for any vindictive motive,” it said.
The government insisted the lower court failed to follow relevant Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit precedent in its decision to dismiss the indictment against Mr Garcia.
“Therefore, an appeal is necessary to seek review of the district court’s decision and ensure that federal law is followed appropriately,” it added.
