Three-time felon and star witness against Abrego García was due to be deported. Now he’s being freed
The Trump administration has agreed to release from prison a three-time felon who drunkenly fired shots in a Texas community and spare him from deportation in exchange for his cooperation in the federal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego García, according to a review of court records and official testimony.
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 the Texas incident, and is now the government’s star witness in its case against Abrego.
The government illegally deported Abrego to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador in March, and stonewalled for weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the United States. Officials flew the Maryland resident back into the country this month, but only after a grand jury had indicted him on charges of migrant smuggling, in part because of Hernandez’s testimony.
In court, prosecutors have identified their main witness as the “first cooperator.” But a federal agent also testified this month that the main cooperator owned the vehicle that Abrego was allegedly using to smuggle migrants when the Tennessee Highway Patrol stopped him in 2022. The Department of Homeland Security has identified Hernandez as the registered owner of the SUV Abrego was driving in that incident. That traffic stop is the centerpiece of the criminal investigation.
Hernandez is among a handful of cooperating witnesses who could help the Trump administration achieve its goal of never letting Abrego walk free in the United States again. In exchange, he has already been released early from federal prison to a halfway house and has been given permission to stay in the U.S. for at least a year.
“Otherwise he would be deported,” Peter Joseph, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent, testified at Abrego’s criminal hearing June 13. The government is also likely to give him a work permit, the agent told the court. [Continue reading…]