A federal judge has scheduled a hearing to determine whether the prosecution is being vindictive in pursuing a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man at the center of a high-profile immigration debate.
Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. set the hearing for Jan. 28, 2026, according to Tuesday’s order. This comes after Abrego Garcia’s trial was canceled earlier this week.
In March, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador. He was returned to the United States a few months later, after a warrant was issued for his arrest on human smuggling charges in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia has denied the human smuggling accusations. His attorneys have claimed that prosecutors are vindictively targeting him.
The federal judge decided that Abrego Garcia had enough evidence to move forward with a hearing. Prosecutors must be able to explain their reasoning behind the charges against him, Crenshaw said. If they fail, the charges could be dismissed.
The human smuggling case stems from a traffic stop in 2022 in Tennessee when Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers. He told law enforcement that they had been working in Missouri. Officers suspected human trafficking, but let him go with a warning and he was never charged.
Abrego Garcia came to the United States illegally from El Salvador around 2011 and was “fleeing gang violence,” according to his attorneys. He had been granted protection from deportation to El Salvador after a judge found he faced danger in his home country from a gang that had targeted his family. Under that order, he was allowed to live and work in the United States under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision.
Abrego Garcia later married a U.S. citizen and worked in construction. He had been living in Maryland under protected legal status, his attorneys said.
He was first arrested in Baltimore on March 12 and sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. Trump administration officials said he was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police that he was an MS-13 gang member.
An “administrative error” had led to his deportation in March 2025, according to the Trump administration. But they still opposed his return to the protected legal status, citing his alleged affiliation with gangs and the federal government’s lack of power over the Central American nation.
The Department of Homeland Security said in the April statement that Abrego Garcia had claimed fear of being returned to El Salvador because he would be persecuted by MS-13's rival gang, Barrio-18.
Abrego Garcia's attorneys have denied that he is linked to MS-13 or any street gangs.