Dems’ favorite MS-13 associate ran human trafficking operations, says ex-boss

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.), and Maxine Dexter (Ore.) are among the Democratic lawmakers who decided to champion the cause of MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national the Trump administration sent packing on March 15.

Abrego Garcia’s illegal entry into the U.S., his
failure to appear for hearings on traffic violations, the domestic abuse allegations lodged against him, his links to a terrorist gang, and his identification by two immigration courts as a danger to the community were likely already cause enough to justify his deportation and to question his Democratic defenders’ judgment. However, more damning information has come to light.

In the wake of the Tennessee Star’s
publication of footage showing Abrego Garcia’s Nov. 30, 2022, encounter with Tennessee Highway Patrol and confirmation of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the traffic stop, ABC News reported that the Salvadoran’s boss has outed him as an human trafficker.

The traffic stop

Tennessee Highway Patrol
reportedly pulled over Abrego Garcia in November 2022 for driving erratically, which he was reportedly doing without a valid license.

‘He’s getting paid to haul these people.’

The THP officer surmised from the MS-13 associate’s human cargo and lack of luggage that Abrego Garcia — then on a terrorist watch list but not on a deportation list — was engaged in human trafficking.

One officer said in the video obtained by the Tennessee Star, “He’s hauling these people for money. You’ve got an ICE hauler, is what he’s doing. Sometimes they come in with dope.”

“There’s eight people in there,” continued the officer. “He’s getting paid to haul these people, probably to Maryland, I would say, if I had to guess.”

Tennessee Highway Patrol notified the Biden FBI, which told the officers to take pictures of Abrego Garcia and his seven passengers, then cut them loose.

While Abrego Garcia got to drive away with just a warning, he did so only after materially and verbally linking himself to a convicted human trafficker.

The black 2001 Chevrolet Silverado that Abrego Garcia was driving was reportedly flagged by the Homeland Security Investigations Baltimore field office as belonging to Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes — an illegal alien from Mexico who Abrego Garcia
told a state trooper was his boss.

Hernandez-Reyes pleaded guilty on June 4, 2020, to smuggling illegal aliens. He was
sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, then deported, though he stole back into the U.S. sometime later and was eventually rearrested.

Abrego Garcia outed

Federal investigators looking into Abrego Garcia’s 2022 traffic stop recently spoke with Hernandez-Reyes at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama, sources familiar with the investigation
told ABC News.

Hernandez-Reyes, who was granted limited immunity, told investigators he ran a “taxi service” based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Mexican national reportedly indicated that he met Abrego Garcia in 2015 and hired him on multiple occasions to smuggle illegal aliens from Texas to other places in the country.

Hernandez-Reyes previously told authorities that he would smuggle people throughout the U.S. for $350 per person. In the bodycam footage of the 2022 traffic stop obtained by the Tennessee Star, Abrego Garcia is said to have $1,400 in cash on his person.

ABC News indicated that the DOJ declined to comment.

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