Abrego Garcia: Just a Quiet Maryland Dad Giving Interstate Lifts to Undocumented Strangers, or Something

Yesterday, both John and I wrote about how badly the decision to make Kilmar Abrego Garcia a martyr was turning out for Democrats. And it keeps getting worse.

Last night, Fox News’ Jesse Waters aired body-cam footage from 2022 in Tennessee, when Abrego Garcia got pulled over by state police. He had eight people in the car with no luggage traveling across the country, while carrying $1400 in cash, in a car that didn’t belong to the driver. The Highway Patrol tried to alert the FBI, but they didn’t have any interest in the clear case of human trafficking that the officers recognized. Neither did Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at that time either, during Joe Biden’s presidency.

Quelle surprise, eh?

🚨NEW: Abrego-Garcia Bodycam Footage Released:

TN Highway Patrol pulled Abrego-Garcia over while driving 8 men cross-country with no luggage.

Cop says: “He’s hauling these people for money.”

Highway Patrol called Biden’s FBI which advised not to detain him. They also called… pic.twitter.com/H9kNb5o2i5

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 2, 2025

The officers may have been nonplussed by the FBI’s lack of interest, because Abrego Garcia was listed as a suspected gang member in NCIC. He also had an invalid driver’s license from Maryland, making for at least probable cause to suspect a potential federal crime was being committed:

A source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital that there was a conversation in the redacted portion of the video where state troopers discussed calling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The troopers called ICE, which didn’t come to pick up Abrego-Garcia. 

The source added that when state troopers entered Abrego-Garcia’s name into the National Crime Information Center, a warning appeared that showed he was suspected of being a gang member or terrorist.

In the video, a trooper said Abrego-Garcia was in possession of $1,400 in cash, saying it was probably his payment. A trooper also noted that Abrego-Garcia had an invalid Maryland driver’s license.

For the Tennessee Highway Patrol, this stop had more red flags than a Chairman Mao celebration in Beijing. Abrego Garcia was driving a car the claimed was a friend’s in Texas, holding an invalid Maryland driver’s license, and traveling through Tennessee in the middle of the night with eight people and no luggage. Abrego Garcia kept changing his story too, injecting yet another state into the conversation:

During the traffic stop, Abrego-Garcia was heard changing his story several times. Abrego-Garcia first said he was headed back to his residence in Maryland, then said he was going to a different town for work. He said the group of individuals were initially driving from St. Louis, Missouri.

The man who owned the car turns out to be a known human trafficker, too:

At the time, the alleged gangbanger — who was deported by the Trump administration last month — claimed that the packed SUV was owned by “his boss” at his construction job, who turned out to be Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, an illegal migrant previously convicted of smuggling others into the US, Just The News first reported.

DHS confirmed the validity of the report to The Post on Wednesday.

The responding officer wrote that he suspected it was “a human trafficking incident” following the stop.

They knew damned well at the time that Abrego Garcia was involved in trafficking the people in the car. That, however, would have been under federal law, and presumably not Tennessee law, so the officers had to defer to either the FBI or ICE. And under Joe Biden, neither the FBI nor the ICE were interested in enforcing human-trafficking laws, and neither were the Democrats who now want to make Abrego Garcia a TDS poster child and claim he was nothing more than a dad “living quietly” in Maryland. 

Well, have fun making Abrego Garcia the new icon of the Left, DeMS-13. I’m sure this will work out really well for you in a country where deporting illegal-alien criminals is about as 80/20 as it gets. 

Have fun storming the castle border!