A previously deported Mexican national with a lengthy rap sheet could be tantamount in proving Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a longtime smuggler of illegal migrants.
Prosecutors released Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes early from a federal prison and have offered him deportation protection in exchange for his cooperation against Abrego Garcia, according to court documents reviewed by The Washington Post. Reyes, an illegal migrant previously convicted of human smuggling himself, is connected to a 2022 Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) stop that became the epicenter of the Trump administration’s criminal case against Abrego Garcia.
THP officers stopped Abrego Garcia in December 2022 along a Tennessee highway while he was purportedly driving from Texas to Maryland, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously confirmed. During the traffic stop, officers suspected human smuggling was in play after noticing that none of eight other passengers were carrying any luggage and all of them claimed Abrego Garcia’s address as their own.
Abrego Garcia claimed the cross-country drive was related to his construction job and that his “boss” owned the vehicle. It was later confirmed that the vehicle Abrego Garcia was driving that night was registered to Reyes, a foreign national previously convicted of smuggling illegal migrants in the U.S.
Reyes pleaded guilty to the illegal transportation of undocumented migrants and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, according to an August 2020 Department of Justice (DOJ) press release about a separate human smuggling incident. Upon completion of his prison sentence, Reyes was due to be removed from the country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and would be subject to up to a decade in prison if he unlawfully returned.
However, his circumstances changed drastically after prosecutors connected him to Abrego Garcia, whose own deportation became a flashpoint in the national debate over the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Following weeks of back-and-forth between federal prosecutors and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys over his anticipated return to the U.S., the DOJ announced earlier in June that he had finally been flown back — but to face a grand jury indictment in Tennessee that he had allegedly made more than 100 trips smuggling illegal migrants, drugs and guns over the course of nearly a decade.
“The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” Attorney General Pam Bondi declared at the time of his return. “They found this was his full time job, not a contractor — he was a smuggler of humans and children and women.”
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia on Friday bemoaned the fact that prosecutors were handing out an advantageous deal to an unnamed individual in exchange for cooperation, according to court documents.
“[The government] has chosen to bring Mr. Abrego back only to convict him in the court of public opinion, including with respect to allegations found nowhere in the actual charges, while boldly announcing that Mr. Abrego ‘will not walk free in our country again,’” his attorney wrote Friday in a request to keep him in jail to avoid deportation. “The government has done so while allowing a cooperator with two felony convictions and five prior deportations to be released from a 30-month sentence for human smuggling to a halfway house, in order to build up a sham of a criminal case against Mr. Abrego.”
Reyes is the individual attorneys were referencing, according to court documents reviewed by the Post. While there are other cooperating witnesses in the case against Abrego Garcia, federal prosecutors have reportedly offered Reyes a sweetheart deal to spill the tea on the media’s infamous “Maryland man.”
In exchange for his testimony, has been given early release from a federal prison and placed into a halfway house, according to the Post. He has additionally been granted permission to remain in the U.S. for at least a year, and could possibly be given a work permit.
In addition to the human smuggling charges against him, Abrego Garcia is suspected of being an MS-13 gang member and was repeatedly accused of domestic abuse by his wife. He has pleaded not guilty to the human smuggling accusations.
On Friday, a federal magistrate judge granted Abrego Garcia’s request to remain in criminal custody in order to prevent ICE agents from quickly apprehending him. His next court hearing will take place on July 16.
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