HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge has concluded that the Department of Justice's prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges may be an illegal retaliation after he successfully sued the Trump administration over his deportation to El Salvador.
The case of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was a construction worker in Maryland, has become a proxy for the partisan struggle over President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration policy and mass deportation agenda.
U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw late Friday granted a request by lawyers for Abrego Garcia and ordered discovery and an evidentiary hearing in Abrego Garcia's effort to show that the federal human smuggling case against him in Tennessee is illegally retaliatory.
Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia had shown that there is “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be vindictive.” That evidence included statements by various Trump administration officials and the timeline of the charges being filed.
The Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case Saturday.
In his 16-page ruling, Crenshaw said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern,” but one stood out.
That statement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, on a Fox News program after Abrego Garcia was charged in June, seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful deportation case, Crenshaw wrote.
Blanche’s ”remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for (Abrego Garcia's) criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights" to sue over his deportation "rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct,” Crenshaw wrote.
Likewise, Crenshaw noted that the Department of Homeland Security reopened an investigation into Abrego Garcia days after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia was indicted on May 21 and charged June 6, the day the U.S. brought him from a prison in El Salvador back to the U.S. He pleaded not guilty and is now being held in Pennsylvania.
If convicted in the Tennessee case, Abrego Garcia will be deported, federal officials have said. A U.S. immigration judge has denied Abrego Garcia's bid for asylum, although he can appeal.
The Salvadoran national has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager.
In 2019, he was arrested by immigration agents. He requested asylum but was not eligible because he had been in the U.S. for more than a year. But the judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.
The human smuggling charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop. He was not charged at the time.
Trump administration officials have waged a relentless public relations campaign against Abrego Garcia, repeatedly referring to him as a member of the MS-13 gang, among other things, despite the fact he has not been convicted of any crimes.
Abrego Garcia's attorneys have denounced the criminal charges and the deportation efforts, saying they are an attempt to punish him for standing up to the administration.
Abrego Garcia contends that, while imprisoned in El Salvador, he suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has denied those allegations.
Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter
FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia attends a protest rally at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, to support Abrego Garcia. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation likely remained elevated last month as the cost of electricity, groceries, and clothing may have jumped and continued to pressure consumers' wallets.
The Labor Department is expected to report that consumer prices rose 2.6% in December compared with a year earlier, according to economists' estimates compiled by data provider FactSet. The yearly rate would be down from 2.7% in November. Monthly prices, however, are expected to rise 0.3% in December, faster than is consistent with the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation goal.
The figures are harder to predict this month, however, because the six-week government shutdown last fall suspended the collection of price data used to compile the inflation rate. Some economists expect the December figures will show a bigger jump in inflation as the data collection process gets back to normal.
Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, are also expected to rise 0.3% in December from the previous month, and 2.7% from a year earlier. The yearly core figure would be an increase from 2.6% in November.
In November, annual inflation fell from 3% in September to 2.7%, in part because of quirks in November's data. (The government never calculated a yearly figure for October). Most prices were collected in the second half of November, after the government reopened, when holiday discounts kicked in, which may have biased November inflation lower.
And since rental prices weren't fully collected in October, the agency that prepares the inflation reports used placeholder estimates that may have biased prices lower, economists said.
Inflation has come down significantly from the four-decade peak of 9.1% that it reached in June 2022, but it has been stubbornly close to 3% since late 2023. The cost of necessities such as groceries is about 25% higher than it was before the pandemic, and other necessities such as rent and clothing have also gotten more expensive, fueling dissatisfaction with the economy that both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have sought to address, though with limited success.
The Federal Reserve has struggled to balance its goal of fighting inflation by keeping borrowing costs high, while also supporting hiring by cutting interest rates when unemployment worsens. As long as inflation remains above its target of 2%, the Fed will likely be reluctant to cut rates much more.
The Fed reduced its key rate by a quarter-point in December, but Chair Jerome Powell, at a press conference explaining its decision, said the Fed would probably hold off on further cuts to see how the economy evolves.
The 19 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have been sharply divided for months over whether to cut its rate further, or keep it at its curent level of about 3.6% to combat inflation.
Trump, meanwhile, has harshly criticized the Fed for not cutting its key short-term rate more sharply, a move he has said would reduce mortgage rates and the government's borrowing costs for its huge debt pile. Yet the Fed doesn't directly control mortgage rates, which are set by financial markets.
In a move that cast a shadow over the ability of the Fed to fight inflation in the future, the Department of Justice served the central bank last Friday with subpoenas related to Powell's congressional testimony in June about a $2.5 billion renovation of two Fed office buildings. Trump administration officials have suggested that Powell either lied about changes to the building or altered plans in ways that are inconsistent with those approved by planning commissions.
In a blunt response, Powell said Sunday those claims were “pretexts” for an effort by the White House to assert more control over the Fed.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell said. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”
FILE -American Giant clothing is displayed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE -A cashier rings up groceries in Dallas, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
