FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia attends a protest rally at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025, to support Abrego Garcia. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
FILE - Activists rally outside of the U.S. District Court District of Maryland ahead of an evidentiary hearing where attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia will seek his immediate release from immigration detention, Oct. 10, 2025, in Greenbelt, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia attends a protest rally at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025, to support Abrego Garcia. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
FILE - Activists rally outside of the U.S. District Court District of Maryland ahead of an evidentiary hearing where attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia will seek his immediate release from immigration detention, Oct. 10, 2025, in Greenbelt, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge in Tennessee on Monday warned of possible sanctions against top Trump administration officials if they continue to make inflammatory statements about Kilmar Abrego Garcia that could prejudice his coming trial.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw filed an order late on Monday instructing local prosecutors in Nashville to provide a copy of his opinion to all Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security employees, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Government employees have made extrajudicial statements that are troubling, especially where many of them are exaggerated if not simply inaccurate,†Crenshaw writes.
He lists a number of examples of prohibited statements as outlined in the local rules for the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee. They include any statements about the “character, credibility, reputation, or criminal record of a party†and “any opinion as to the accused's guilt or innocence.â€
“DOJ and DHS employees who fail to comply with the requirement to refrain from making any statement that ‘will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing’ this criminal prosecution may be subject to sanctions,†his order reads.
Earlier this year, Abrego Garcia's to El Salvador, where he was held in a despite having no criminal record, helped galvanize opposition to President Donald Trump’s . Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, the Trump administration . in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked Crenshaw to dismiss them.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have waged a relentless public relations campaign against Abrego Garcia, repeatedly referring to him as and even implicating him in a murder. Crenshaw's opinion cites statements from several top officials, including Bondi and Noem, as potentially damaging to Abrego Garcia's right to a fair trial. He also admonishes Abrego Garcia's defense attorneys for publicly disclosing details of plea agreement negotiations.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, finding he had a well-founded fear of violence there from a gang that targeted his family.
Since his return to the U.S. in June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced plans to deport him to a , .
