Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison -- despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution -- after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13. His wife and attorneys deny that he is an MS-13 member.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol on Thursday released its bodycam footage of a traffic stop interaction it had with alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in 2022. Abrego Garcia was deported by the Trump administration earlier this year, but has become the face of one of the biggest deportation cases in recent history. Democrats have argued that Abrego Garcia was a peaceful, law-abiding man from Maryland prior to his deportation.
“How many rows have you got in here? Four seats? Four rows of seats?” a state trooper can be heard saying. “Did y’all put an extra one in? Huh? Did y’all put another one in? They come like this, I’ve never seen one with that many seats in it.” “He’s hauling these people for money,” one state trooper said. State troopers who pulled over Abrego-Garcia said they suspected he was involved in human trafficking, according to body camera video. A state trooper can be heard saying “This is a good stop.”
