US officials have argued the traffic stop in November 2022, during which Abrego Garcia was not detained, supports their claims that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 and involved in human trafficking. The stop resulted in no charges, and there was no mention of human trafficking in the parts of the redacted report that have been made available.
Yet the 2022 traffic stop now could play into the ongoing political debate and legal standoff over Abrego Garcia, who is still in El Salvador while a federal judge demands answers and more evidence from the Trump administration.
So far in the ongoing court proceeding over his custody, his attorneys have said that the US in his 2019 immigration proceedings offered little reason to believe Abrego Garcia was tied to a gang, other than the fact he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and that a confidential informant provided a tip to authorities.
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“There is no known link or association between him and the MS-13 gang,” his lawyers told the federal judge last month.
In a statement provided to CNN regarding the bodycam footage, Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said, his client “has been denied the most basic protections of due process—no phone call to his lawyer, no call to his wife or child, and no opportunity to be heard.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg added that “I see no evidence of a crime in this footage. But the point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States, return him before the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, and let him speak for himself.”
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Earlier, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Highway Patrol told CNN that Abrego Garcia was flagged to federal law enforcement, “who made the decision not to detain him.”
According to a Department of Homeland Security statement released last month about the incident, federal officials released Abrego Garcia with a warning for driving with an expired license.
CNN: Tennessee authorities release video of Abrego Garcia at a traffic stop that officials have used to paint him as a criminal
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