Tennessee authorities have released damning police bodycam footage showing the moment an accused gang member at the center of a deportation fight was pulled over by cops for suspected human trafficking. 

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, is seen in the footage from November 30, 2022, speaking with officers from the Tennessee Highway Patrol in what initially appears to be a routine traffic stop. 

After asking Abrego Garcia to show his license, the officer changes his tune as he realizes there are eight other people in the car, all of whom were men. 

‘How many rows have you got in here? Four seats? Four rows of seats?’ the state trooper said in the footage, first obtained by Fox News. 

He questioned if Abrego Garcia had ‘put an extra [set of seats] in’ the car, adding: ‘I’ve never seen one with that many seats in it.’ 

Abrego Garcia appeared to change his story after being quizzed by the trooper. He initially said he was going to St. Louis, Missouri, before then saying he was headed home to Maryland. 

Abrego Garcia then said the group of men in his car were going to St. Louis while he was continuing on to ‘work,’ adding his boss was in Texas and seemingly raising the trooper’s suspicions. 

As the troopers leave to run his license, one was heard saying to the other: ‘He’s hauling these people for money.’ 

According to Fox News, a source told the outlet that a redacted portion of the footage showed the troopers considering whether to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

The troopers decided to do so, but ICE officials reportedly never came to pick up Abrego Garcia. 

In a report from the traffic stop, troopers noted that none of the men in the car had luggage and all said their addresses were the same as Abrego Garcia’s. Troopers also said the driver appeared to try and know less English than he was capable of. 

The illegal migrant has become the face of President Trump’s deportation crackdown as his status in the US was scrutinized following his detainment earlier this year. 

In 2019, he was issued a deportation order, and two judges had previously concluded that he was likely affiliated with the gang MS-13 . 

During the 2022 traffic stop, when troopers ran his name through the National Crime Information Center database, they were hit with a warning that showed he was suspected of being a gang member or a terrorist, a source told Fox News.

After the trooper suspected Abrego Garcia was ‘hauling these people for money,’ the migrant was found to be in possession of $1,400 in cash and an expired license. 

In the footage, one of the troopers could be heard saying to the other: ‘This is a good stop.’ 

Despite the expired license and the trooper’s suspicions, Abrego Garcia was let go without an arrest or citation, and Garcia’s lawyers said he has never been charged or convicted of any crime.  

It comes as Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to organized crime have come under a microscope, with Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen criticized for meeting with the deportee in El Salvador as they appeared to sip margaritas together. 

Van Hollen was ridiculed by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele for his visit, drawing attention to the drinks with salt on the rim at their meeting. 

‘Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture,” now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!’ Bukele wrote in post on X.

Popular Trump-aligned accounts on X, including Libs of TikTok, also slammed Van Hollen for his cozy chat with Abrego Garcia.

One person pointed out that in Van Hollen’s official post on X, he didn’t include the picture showing the margarita glasses.

Another responded directly to the senator’s post: ‘Hey Chris!! This is the real picture. How were those margaritas??? President Bukele posted this one. No hiding the truth from America.’

A third wrote: ‘Senator Chris Van Hollen and Kilmar Abrego Garcia sipping margaritas with salted rims…Thirsty Thursday in El Salvador.’  

Abrego Garcia entered the US illegally in 2011. A judge blocked his return to El Salvador in 2019, citing the fact that gangsters were after him, but said he could be deported elsewhere. 

Trump officials insist Abrego Garcia is not innocent. They claim he’s an MS-13 gangster who deserves to be sent back to El Salvador.

Additionally, a 2021 petition for protection from domestic violence filled out by Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, first obtained by DailyMail.com, stated that the alleged MS-13 member beat his wife multiple times over the years.

In court filings last month, the Trump administration said he was deported to El Salvador in error. The Supreme Court has since ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US.

A three-judge panel from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with the court’s instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Trump administration’s claims that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison or return him to the US ‘should be shocking to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,’ the court said in a blistering order that ratchets up the escalating conflict between the government’s executive and judicial branches.