A federal judge says he believes the immigrant defendant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration wrongly sent to El Salvador, may have been targeted with a criminal charge by the Justice Department this year out of vindictiveness.

“The Government had a significant stake in retaliating against Abrego’s success” suing the Trump administration after his wrongful removal to El Salvador in March, Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. of the Middle District of Tennessee wrote on Friday. “The Court finds Abrego has sufficiently presented some evidence that the Government had a stake in retaliating against him for exercising his rights in the Maryland suit and deterring him from continuing to exercise those rights.”