Feds release star witness and three-time felon to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in jail
Court records show that Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to spare a key witness from deportation in exchange for his cooperation in the federal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, 38, has been convicted of smuggling migrants and illegally reentering the United States after having been deported. He also pleaded guilty to “deadly conduct” in connection with a separate incident where he drunkenly fired a gun in a Texas community.
Records reviewed by The Washington Post show that Hernandez Reyes has been released early from federal prison to a halfway house and has been given permission to stay in the United States for at least a year.
Prosecutors have identified Hernandez Reyes as the “first cooperator” in the case against Abrego, according to court filings.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that Hernandez owned the SUV that Abrego Garcia was allegedly using to smuggle migrants when the Tennessee Highway Patrol stopped him in 2022. That traffic stop is at the center of the criminal investigation against Abrego Garcia.
Hernandez Reyes is among a handful of cooperating witnesses who could help the administration deport Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran construction worker who had been living in Maryland, became a flashpoint over Trump’s anti-immigration agenda when he was mistakenly deported to a brutal prison in his home country in March.
Administration officials fought off court orders for weeks despite admitting he was removed from the country due to an “administrative error,” claiming that they were powerless to return him. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, officials abruptly returned him to the United States to face a criminal indictment in Tennessee, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”
Federal prosecutors and Attorney General Pam Bondi have sought to portray Abrego Garcia as a public menace and threat to society in a motion to keep him imprisoned as his case moves to trial. He’s accused of a range of other crimes, for which he has not been charged, including “solicitation of child pornography.” Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
Lawyers for the government told a federal judge last week that federal authorities plan to arrest and deport the 29-year-old Salvadoran immigrant a second time, but not to El Salvador.
“Our plan is, he will be taken into ICE custody and removal proceedings will be initiated,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during a court hearing over his initial challenge to his removal from the country.
There are no “imminent” plans to do so, he said.
On Friday, attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge in Tennessee to delay his release from jail because of “contradictory statements” by the administration over whether or not he’ll be deported upon release.
A federal judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Abrego Garcia to await trial on human smuggling charges. But she’s been holding off over concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would swiftly detain him and try to deport him again.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are now asking the judge to continue to detain him following statements by administration officials “because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by” the Justice Department.
A court hearing over his months-long challenge against his removal from the country is scheduled July 7.
