DOJ Investigating Kilmar Garcia’s 2022 Traffic Stop In Tennessee

The Department of Justice is looking into the traffic stop of Kilmar Abgrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol in 2022, according to ABC News.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, gained headlines after being deported from Maryland to an El Salvador prison by the Trump administration. Abrego Garcia had unlawfully entered the United States in 2011. The Tennessee Highway Patrol revealed body camera footage from their November 2022 interaction with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was initially acquired by Fox News.
At the time, state authorities suspected Abrego Garcia of human trafficking and pulled him over for speeding. He was in the automobile with eight other persons.
Abrego Garcia told officers they had been working on a construction project in Missouri. The soldiers did not give Abrego Garcia a ticket and allowed him to go on.
ABC News learned that Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, 38, was the registered owner of the car operated by Abrego Garcia.
According to ABC News, federal agents investigating the traffic stop questioned Hernandez-Reyes last month at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama, and learned that he had hired Abrego Garcia several times to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to other locations in the United States.
The FBI told police in Tennessee, who had stopped Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to release him even though he was suspected of human trafficking and smuggling of illegal immigrants at the time, according to sources who spoke with Fox News.
In a show segment on Thursday, host Jesse Watters played a video clip of Abrego Garcia’s interaction with officers, which showed them questioning the suspect who was traveling with a vehicle full of people. Watters said his show is the first to air the clip.
During the traffic stop, Abrego Garcia told officers that he and the others were traveling for work in Missouri, while also informing them that he lived in Maryland. Officers began to get suspicious when they discovered that Abrego Garcia and the others were traveling without any luggage or belongings.
“He was a suspect in a human trafficking operation dating back three years and Fox Digital just got their hands on the body camera,” Watters said, introducing the clip. “You are seeing it here first. Tennessee highway patrol stopped Kilmar for speeding and noticed he had eight other people in the car. All with no luggage.”
WATCH:
Video Player
“After talking to Kilmar,” Watters continued, “the officers had no doubt that he was trafficking.”
“In the video, you can see one of the cops making a phone call,” Watters continued. “The body camera audio cuts over 10 minutes. Sources told us that on that call was Joe Biden’s FBI, which advised police not to detain Kilmar at the time.”
“That source also tells us highway patrol called Biden’s ICE, and they never showed up. Biden’s guys had an MS-13 gangster, suspected human smuggler, and wife-beater…released into the country. God knows what he did and was never caught for before Trump deported him,” he added.
Democrats have embraced Abrego Garcia as their latest anti-Trump cause, citing a U.S. Supreme Court order they say requires the administration to return him from El Salvador. But the order only says that the administration must “facilitate” his return, a vague term that gives the White House some room to try and negotiation with the El Salvadoran government. So far, however, that effort has been unsuccessful.
But as more information is uncovered regarding Abrego Garcia’s checkered past — and the fact that his status as being in the country illegally is not in dispute — Democratic leaders are pressuring members to refrain from traveling to El Salvador as the party suffers from the political fallout.
When asked Monday if Democrats should press ahead with their El Salvador trips, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped the question and instead attacked Trump’s approval ratings. However, Democratic aides told The Bulwark that he has privately urged members to pause future visits. “They want to let the El Salvador stuff slow down,” one senior staffer said.