The Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) officers captured in the body-worn camera footage of the November 30, 2022 traffic stop of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, released by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security (TDOSHS) to The Tennessee Star last week, said that the Salvadoran national had a pocket containing $1,400 as he transported passengers from Texas to Maryland.
Confirming troopers suspected Abrego Garcia was trafficking people from Texas to Maryland, with an unexplained stop in St. Louis, Missouri, as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed last month, The Star reported last week that within the TDOSHS body camera footage, one trooper remarked, “He’s hauling these people for money.”
The trooper added, “He’s getting paid to haul these people, probably to Maryland, I would say. If I had to guess.”
BREAKING: Body cam footage obtained by Tennessee Star shows Tennessee Trooper saying Kilmar Abrego Garcia "hauling these people for money" pic.twitter.com/4FHWOIjSz5
— Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) May 2, 2025
This analysis between troopers came shortly before one of the troopers divulged the cash found on Abrego Garcia’s person.
“He’s got $1,400 cash in his pocket in an envelope,” said the trooper. “Probably payments.”
Notably, the DHS has confirmed the 2001 Chevrolet Suburban driven by Abrego Garcia in 2022 was owned by Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, a convicted human smuggler who lived in El Salvador prior to his 2019 arrest, and was deported to his native El Salvador the following year.
Court documents from the Hernandez Reyes court case, obtained by The Star, reveal the Salvadoran charged passengers $350 to travel from Houston, Texas, a human trafficking hub, to various cities throughout the country.
Another trooper revealed that Abrego Garcia had a large firework in the vehicle, and that the citizen of El Savlador was repeatedly using his cell phone despite troopers’ instruction not to use the device.
“I told him not to be on the phone. He’s up there on the phone,” said the trooper. “They’re all yelling in Spanish and stuff.”
After The Star was first to report that Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee, THP told The Star the Salvadoran and his passengers were released at the instruction of the “Biden-era FBI,” and the video appears to show the troopers discuss what next steps could be taken after they received this instruction.
Noting that Abrego Garcia was driving with an expired driver’s license, which DHS later confirmed was a form of Maryland driver’s license which grants illegal immigrants the right to travel within that state, the troopers seemed to suggest he could be arrested due to his immigration status.
One trooper suggested they could, “technically take him up there for that, put him in with no driver’s license,” and which would have allowed Abrego Garcia to be held in a Tennessee jail until federal authorities could request he be transferred to their custody.
Much later in the stop, THP again considered whether Abrego Garcia should be arrested, prompting one trooper to suggest the Salvadoran’s passengers would be abandoned on the side of the road under such circumstances.
“If he gets arrested, you’re not gonna have any choice but to just dump them out beside the interstate,” the trooper claimed.
It is unclear why the troopers did not consider contacting the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), which previously told The Star it was not made aware of the stop, which seemingly contradicts established procedures for Tennessee law enforcement.
The video and document released by TDOSHS were heavily redacted, with the agency neglecting to explain its decision to redact much of the audio from the body-worn camera video, or its failure to comply with the request by The Star to release the complete footage from the stop.
Subject to a final deportation order issued in 2019, Abrego Garcia was deported by the Trump administration in March. The deportation order included a “withholding of removal” that barred his deportation to one of two nations, either Guatemala or El Salvador, and Abrego Garcia has argued his deportation violated this portion of the order.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
