House Homeland Security Committee Mark Green (R-TN) is launching an investigation into Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s alleged involvement in a human smuggling ring. Abrego Garcia was deported by President Donald Trump’s administration to El Salvador after he was accused of being an MS-13 gang member. Democrats have since sought his return to the United States.
In a letter to Tennessee Highway Patrol officials, Green is requesting unredacted details regarding a 2022 traffic stop involving Abrego Garcia where deputies believed he was carrying out a human smuggling operation.
A convicted felon who ran a human smuggling ring has reportedly told Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents that he hired Abrego Garcia to help bring illegal aliens from the southern border into the U.S. interior, undetected by law enforcement.
RELATED: Domestic Violence Allegations of Abrego Garcia Revealed by Karoline Leavitt
“On May 1, 2025, the Tennessee Star posted a redacted body camera video depicting Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) officers conducting a traffic stop on November 30, 2022, of a vehicle driven by Mr. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia,” Green writes to the Tennessee Highway Patrol:
Mr. Abrego Garcia was stopped for driving erratically and speeding and was found to be driving a car full of people. In the video, a THP officer states that he believes Mr. Abrego Garcia is “hauling these people for money,” presumably indicating that he suspected Mr. Abrego Garcia was being paid to smuggle illegal aliens. Mr. Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle allegedly owned by Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, an illegal alien who pled guilty to smuggling illegal aliens into the United States in 2020. [Emphasis added]
The THP officers utilized federal law enforcement intelligence during their stop and investigation of Mr. Abrego Garcia. According to a Homeland Security Investigations Combined Intelligence Unit (CIU) report, THP queried Mr. Abrego Garcia in the National Crime Information Center database following the traffic stop. The CIU report states that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a validated member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13), a transnational criminal organization. Additionally, the THP officers were reportedly in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who allegedly advised THP to not detain Mr. Abrego Garcia. Despite Mr. Abrego Garcia’s traffic violations and the THP officers’ suspicions of human trafficking, the officers ultimately released Mr. Abrego Garcia. The Committee is concerned that inadequate or ineffective information sharing between federal agents and the THP officers during the Biden Administration may have led to the release of an active gang member and potential human trafficker. [Emphasis added]
Green has asked the law enforcement agency for all bodycam and dash camera footage from the traffic stop involving Abrego Garcia, as well as all notes and reports taken by officials regarding the case, among other records.
For months, House and Senate Democrats have demanded that Trump return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from El Salvador, where he is currently incarcerated.
Last week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem told Senators that “there is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again.”
“If he were to come back, we would immediately deport him again because he is a terrorist, a human smuggler, and he is a wife-beater,” Noem said.
Indeed, Abrego Garcia has long been accused of MS-13 gang membership and has twice been accused by his wife in Maryland of domestic abuse.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
