Mississippi Traffic Stop of Human Smuggler Who Owned Car Driven by Kilmar Abrego Garcia Differed Wildly from 2022 Tennessee Incident

Court records documenting the charges levied against human smuggler and illegal immigrant Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, obtained by The Tennessee Star on Wednesday, illustrate a stark contrast between the traffic December 4, 2019 stop of the vehicle containing Hernandez Reyes, and the December 1, 2022 stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol of a vehicle owned by Hernandez Reyes but operated by the citizen of El Salvador who was deported last month under the Trump administration, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The Star was first to report last week that Abrego Garcia was stopped by highway patrol in 2022, when he was transporting eight passengers from Texas to Maryland, with a claimed journey through Missouri, before reaching Tennessee.

During the stop, Abrego Garcia provided an expired form of a Maryland driver’s license, which permits illegal immigrants to drive in that state, and deflected questions from officers by answering them with additional questions, according to a report of the incident made public by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

That report showed Abrego Garcia claimed to work in construction, and that he was driving a vehicle registered to his boss to transport workers across the country.

These circumstances led the THP officers at the scene suspect he was engaged in human trafficking, and THP told The Star it contacted the “Biden-era FBI,” which instructed the officers to photograph Abrego Garcia, his passengers, and the contents of the vehicle, and then to release them. It has since been reported that the DHS also declined to dispatch personnel to the scene.

Neither Abrego Garcia nor any of his passengers were interviewed during the stop. Instead, THP apparently asked each of the men to write their names and addresses on a piece of paper, revealing they all claimed to live at the same address with Abrego Garcia. Their names were apparently illegible.

According to the DHS report, Abrego Garcia was only cited by highway patrol with a warning for his failure to produce a valid driver’s license, which is a Class B Misdemeanor in Tennessee.

The 2019 stop of Hernandez Reyes differed substantially from the stop of Abrego Garcia, despite the men both being citizens of El Salvador who were in the country illegally, with Hernandez Reyes having been previously deported and Abrego Garcia subject to a final deportation order that included a “withholding of removal,” and despite Abrego Garcia driving a vehicle registered to Hernandez Reyes more than two years after its owner was incarcerated for human smuggling.

According to the criminal complaint filed by federal authorities, the stop of Hernandez Reyes was initially conducted by a police officer in Gautier, Mississippi, who observed the Salvadoran’s white Dodge Caravan with a New Mexico license plate “committing a traffic violation” while driving east on I-10, then quickly correct the behavior upon seeing the patrol vehicle.

This officer, who was also a member of a statewide drug enforcement team, also reported that there were no results for the vehicle’s license plate in law enforcement databases, and that cardboard was placed in the back of the vehicle so that it “was blocking and/or attempting to hide something in the back window.”

Unlike the stop of Abrego Garcia, the vehicle containing Hernandez Reyes was driven by Modesto Alvarado, a citizen of the United States who did not have a valid driver’s license. Alvarado initially claimed to be the son of Hernandez Reyes, but later admitted to being his brother-in-law, and making $400 after completing a similar trip. Hernandez Reyes was located in the passenger seat of the vehicle.

While THP told The Star it contacted the “Biden-era FBI,” which it stated had jurisdiction over the 2022 investigation into Abrego Garcia, and it has since been reported that DHS declined to participate, the Mississippi stop involved the Gautier City Police Department, Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, and the DHS, as well as a translator provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The subsequent investigation determined all of the passengers were illegal immigrants, “being smuggled from Houston, Texas, to different locations throughout the United States.”

While both Abrego Garcia and Hernandez Reyes departed from Houston, it is unclear what Hernandez Reyes and Alvarado were driving toward. Additionally, the Mississippi traffic stop happened about a seven hour drive from the stop in Tennessee.

Through the assistance of a translator provided by ICE, law enforcement participating in the stop interviewed all of the passengers, revealing Hernandez Reyes confirmed he was in the country illegally, and that he claimed to be the proprietor of a transportation business named Trans Express, which he said he created after finding Uber too competitive while living in Maryland.

Unlike the stop in Tennessee, the evidence gathered and interviews led to arrests in Mississippi. Both Hernandez Reyes and Alvarado accepted guilty pleas by the following June.

The terms of Hernandez Reyes’ sentence included a period of supervised release, during which he was meant to remain out of the country. This period appears to include the time when Abrego Garcia drove his countryman’s vehicle from Texas to Maryland.

It remains unclear whether THP knew the significance of Hernandez Reyes owning the vehicle operated by Abrego Garcia, and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which oversees the highway patrol, is currently slow walking two Open Records Requests filed by The Star.

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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].