Hauling People ‘For Money’: Newly Released Video Shows Police Stop of Abrego Garcia

The Tennessee Highway Patrol has released body camera footage of its November 2022 traffic stop of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, in which he is suspected of human smuggling.  

It was dark outside when the state trooper pulled Abrego Garcia over and walked up to his vehicle. The officer’s flashlight revealed eight additional men cramped into the vehicle.  

“How many rows have you got in here? Four seats? Four rows of seats?” the trooper asked Abrego Garcia. “Did y’all put an extra one in?”  

Abrego Garcia says no.  

“He’s hauling these people for money,” another trooper can be heard saying moments later.  

The troopers discuss the fact that there is no luggage in the car, despite the fact that Abrego Garcia said all the men were traveling through multiple states for construction work.  

“He’s got $1,400 cash in his pocket in an envelope,” one of the troopers can be heard saying a moment later. Abrego Garcia was also driving without a valid license and said the vehicle belonged to his boss.  

Fox News obtained the video footage through a Freedom of Information Act request.  

According to Fox News, a source familiar with the situation said a portion of the video was redacted in which the troopers discuss contacting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but ICE never came to pick up Abrego Garcia.

The source also told Fox News that when the troopers put Abrego Garcia’s name into the National Crime Information Center, he came up as a suspected gang member or terrorist.  

Police and court records also reveal that Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia’s wife, claimed multiple times that her husband was beating her.  

A March 2019 report from the Department of Homeland Security reports that Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador and crossed into the U.S. illegally near McAllen, Texas, in March 2012.   

Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland until the Trump administration deported him back to El Salvador on March 15. The Trump administration initially said he was removed due to an “administrative error,” but later said that was an inaccurate claim. But some Democrats and media outlets continue to claim the illegal alien was wrongfully removed from the U.S.  

Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia in April. Shortly after Van Hollen’s trip, Democrat Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and Robert Garcia of California all traveled to El Salvador together to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s release from prison.  

Despite calls from the political left for Abrego Garcia to be returned to America, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele says the deported illegal alien has the “honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”  

Bukele and President Donald Trump struck a multiple million-dollar deal for El Salvador to receive and house hundreds of deported illegal aliens in its prisons.