(Ken Silva, Headline USA) ABC News reported Tuesday that the Justice Department is investigating why the FBI had local police release “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia when he was suspected of human trafficking in 2022.
Abrego Garcia is the El Salvador national who was deported in March on the grounds that he’s a suspected MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia was deported despite the fact that an immigration judge granted him special protection from removal around 2019, on the grounds that a local gang in El Salvador was extorting his family.
According to ABC News, the DOJ has given "limited immunity" to one of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's old human smuggling associates — the one who owned the car Abrego Garcia was driving when he was pulled over in Tennessee in 2022.
The DOJ reportedly wants to know more about Abrego… pic.twitter.com/m1e7MuHuE4— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 6, 2025
While the Trump administration continues to argue in court about whether Abrego Garcia’s deportation was justified, the DOJ is now also probing why the FBI ordered the Tennessee Highway Patrol to release him during a traffic stop in 2022—when he was found to have been driving a vehicle with eight individuals who had been allegedly smuggled into the U.S.
According to ABC News, the DOJ interviewed the owner of the vehicle Abrego Garcia was driving in 2022. That man, Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, is also an illegal immigrant and accused human smuggler. ABC News said federal agents interviewed him late last month at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama. Reyes was reportedly given “limited immunity” to talk about Abrego Garcia.
“Hernandez-Reyes told investigators that he previously operated a ‘taxi service’ based in Baltimore. He claimed to have met Abrego Garcia around 2015 and claimed to have hired him on multiple occasions to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to various locations in the United States,” ABC reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the investigation.
🚨 JUST IN: Bodycam footage of deported MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia showing him SMUGGLING EIGHT ILLEGALS has been obtained by Fox News
“He’s hauling these people for money,” a trooper says
WHY DID THE BIDEN FBI ORDER HIM RELEASED?! pic.twitter.com/J8p7Lvxewt
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 2, 2025
“The frequency and time frame of the alleged trips was not immediately clear,” ABC reported. “It’s unclear whether prosecutors will ultimately gather enough evidence to bring charges against Abrego Garcia. The interview of Hernandez-Reyes, however, appears to be a new and aggressive step in the government’s efforts to gather potentially incriminating information about Abrego Garcia’s background.”
Abrego Garcia is reportedly currently detained in El Salvador’s maximum-security prison, Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT.
A judge—described by Republicans as a judicial activist—has ruled that the Trump administration must take steps to bring Garcia back to the U.S., based on the earlier court order. The administration is supposed to report to the judge this week about the steps it’s taken to retrieve him.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
