A US judge has dismissed the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to a megaprison in El Salvador last year.

Abrego Garcia, whose deportation became a major flashpoint in the debate over the Trump administration's immigration agenda, returned to the US in June after the government admitted it had wrongfully sent him back to his native country.

After his return, federal prosecutors charged him with human smuggling over a 2022 incident in Tennessee, where he was found to have several people in his car during a traffic stop. He pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, the federal judge dismissed the case and said Abrego Garcia had been charged for political reasons.

"The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly," US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in her opinion.

She said the case was only launched to justify the government's decision to deport the 30 year old. The judge also said the Trump administration had failed to rebut the "presumption of vindictiveness".

"The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego's successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution," the Tennessee judge said.

"The Executive Branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop. Only after Abrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the Executive Branch reopen that investigation," the opinion reads.

The Justice Department has yet to comment on Friday's decision.

In the past, federal prosecutors have argued that the case was apolitical and that the charges were brought only because "the evidence pointed to Abrego Garcia having committed a crime".

Abrego Garcia, who is married to an American citizen and has been living in Maryland for years, illegally came to the US from El Salvador when he was a teenager.

In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

At the time, the judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he could face persecution by a gang in his home country.

But the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador in March 2025, prompting an order from the US Supreme Court requiring the government to bring him back.

He was held in CECOT, a notorious El Salvador megaprison, for months after the courts ordered his return to the US. He was brought back only after the government had secured the human trafficking charges against him.

On his return to the US last June, he was arrested and taken to Tennessee to face the charges.

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia then sought to dismiss the charges, arguing that he was being vindictively prosecuted by the Justice Department.

In August, he was arrested again in Baltimore during an immigration meeting and held in a detention centre until another judge barred the move and ordered his release.

A judge barred the government from removing Abrego Garcia to a third country while the case was ongoing, after reports emerged that the Trump administration was considering sending him to Uganda.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia while he was detained in El Salvador, celebrated Friday's announcement on X.

"Today, a federal judge determined what we've known all along, the Trump admin was engaged in a vindictive prosecution against Kilmar Abrego Garcia," Van Hollen wrote. "This is a win for all our rights & the Constitution."