NASHVILLE (AP) — Authorities in Tennessee have released video of a 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland construction worker who became the face of U.S. immigration policy after his erroneous deportation to El Salvador.
The body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Abrego Garcia. He was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and said they'd been working in Missouri.
Officers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were traveling without luggage. One of the officers said: “He's hauling these people for money.” Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.
Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver's license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report said he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.
The Trump administration has been publicizing Abrego Garcia’s interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the U.S.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage.
“But the point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
When details of the Tennessee traffic stop were first publicized, Abrego Garcia’s wife said he sometimes transported groups of fellow construction workers between job sites.
“Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to the claims,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid-April.
Abergo Garcia fled his native El Salvador to the U.S. when he was 16 and lived in Maryland for roughly 14 years, court documents state. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him in March to a Salvadoran prison over a 2019 accusation that he was in the MS-13 gang.
Police in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member based on his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But he was never charged. His lawyers say the informant claimed Abrego Garcia was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he's never lived.
Abrego Garcia's expulsion to El Salvador also violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded him from deportation to his native country. The judge had determined that Abrego Garcia would likely face persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
After Abrego Garcia's family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.
Xinis then lambasted a government lawyer who couldn’t explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done. She ordered officials to provide sworn testimony and other information to document their efforts.
The Trump administration appealed. But a federal appeals court backed Xinis' order for information in a blistering ruling. The case is ongoing.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump acknowledged to ABC News on Tuesday that he could call El Salvador’s president and have Abrego Garcia sent back. But Trump doubled down on his claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.
Attorney Sandoval-Moshenberg said Friday that Abrego Garcia should be able to answer the allegations himself before the U.S. immigration judge who heard his case in 2019.
“I have represented Kilmar Abrego Garcia for more than a month, and this bodycam video is the first time I’ve heard his voice,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “He has been denied the most basic protections of due process — no phone call to his lawyer, no call to his wife or child, and no opportunity to be heard.”
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
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