It was reported on Wednesday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the citizen of El Salvador who was deported by the Trump administration last month but previously lived in Maryland as an illegal immigrant, was driving a vehicle owned by Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes when he was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) in December 2022. He was subsequently released at the instruction of the “Biden-era FBI” despite officers suspecting he was engaged in human trafficking.
Hernandez Reyes is another citizen of El Salvador who was illegally residing in the United States prior to his 2020 conviction for human smuggling, and the preceding criminal complaint filed by a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reveals Hernandez Reyes told law enforcement “he previously lived in Maryland, but now lives in Houston Texas.”
According to the criminal complaint, which The Tennessee Star obtained Wednesday, Hernandez Reyes was pulled over in Jackson County, Mississippi by local law enforcement, and after it was determined the vehicle held more passengers than it was designed to safely transport, he was interviewed by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Special Agent, as well as a member of a DHS task force who served as a deputy for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, with the aid of a translator provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During that interview, the complaint states Hernandez Reyes admitted to being an illegal immigrant and claimed that he relocated from Maryland to Texas due to tight competition for Uber drivers, which he identified as his previous line of work.
The complaint further states that Hernandez Reyes told law enforcement he opened his transportation company, Trans Express, upon relocating to Texas. He said he found clients by advertising through social media and newspapers that he would charge $350, payable in cash, to transport individuals to Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.
He also claimed other “companies” based in Houston would contact him, “once they have a vehicle-load of people,” and admitted to making five such journeys from Texas to other states, according to the complaint.
Seeking more information about the arrest, The Star contacted both the Gautier City Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, but neither local law enforcement agency had a booking photo nor records corresponding to Hernandez Reyes.
The Star contacted DHS to determine if it was the agency responsible for the arrest, but did not receive a response prior to press time.
Like Abrego Garcia, the complaint states that Hernandez Reyes was transporting eight passengers, but reveals that the Salvadoran initially identified one passenger, Modesto Alvarado, as his child. It was later revealed by Hernandez Reyes that Alvarado, the only U.S. citizen in the vehicle, was his brother-in-law.
Per the complaint, Hernandez Reyes admitted the vehicle was en route to Maryland to “drop people off,” that he did not know its passengers, and that he was paid $400 for a similar trip months earlier.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and then barred from reentering the United States during three years of supervised release. Hernandez Reyes appears to have been completing this sentence when Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee.
Notably, when stopped by highway patrol in Tennessee, Abrego Garcia claimed he left Houston three days earlier, that his party passed through St. Louis, Missouri, and was on its way to Maryland. He apparently was not asked to explain the detour through St. Louis and Tennessee, a leg of the journey that added more than seven hours to its duration.
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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].
