WASHINGTON — Following a federal judge's dismissal of charges against a man who successfully fought his illegal deportation, the Justice Department confirmed it will appeal the decision, defending its right to pick the person first and the crime second.

The dispute began in April 2025 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the administration to retrieve a man it had mistakenly deported in violation of a 2019 protection order. Upon his mandated return to U.S. soil that June, federal agents immediately indicted him on human smuggling charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop that the Department of Homeland Security had already investigated and closed.

"When the highest court in the land tells us we made a legal error, we don't just blindly accept it—we quickly dig through a three-year-old closed file to ensure the individual pays for embarrassing us," a department spokesperson said. Administration officials had previously praised the retaliatory indictment to the press, proudly declaring, "This is what American justice looks like."

In dismissing the case in May 2026, Federal Judge Waverly Crenshaw cited "presumptive vindictiveness" and an "abuse of prosecuting power." The Justice Department immediately announced its intent to appeal the ruling, warning of the dangerous precedent that successful legal challenges against the government could no longer be met with immediate, unrelated criminal charges.