Maryland
Trump Frees Felon to Keep Deported Maryland Dad Locked Up
The Trump administration has freed a convicted human smuggler in its desperate bid to convict Kilmar Abrego Garcia of the same charge.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported Abrego Garcia in March—a move the Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted was an error—before a federal judge forced the administration to return him. Abrego Garcia was placed in federal custody on a human smuggling charge as soon as he set foot on U.S. soil again.
Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to focus mass deportation efforts on criminals—the “worst of the worst”—the DOJ has now released three-time felon Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes from federal prison and transferred him to a halfway house in exchange for his testimony against Abrego Garcia, an undocumented father from Maryland.
“It’s wild to me,” Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, told the Washington Post. “It’s just further evidence of how the government is using Kilmar’s case to further their propaganda and prove their political point.”
In exchange for testifying against Abrego Garcia, prosecutors have reportedly promised Hernandez he will be permitted to stay in the U.S. for at least a year. ICE officials, meanwhile, have said Abrego Garcia will be deported again in the event he is convicted at trial.
The Trump administration flew Abrego Garcia to a notorious El Salvadoran prison in March as a result of what the DOJ described as an administrative error; an immigration judge previously ruled that it was not safe for Abrego Garcia to be deported to his home country.
In a move denounced by critics as an attempt to save face over the gaffe, officials returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. earlier this month and then charged him with smuggling, based partly on Hernandez’s testimony.
Abrego Garcia, 29, has not been convicted of a crime in the United States, where he has resided since he was 16. He has denied involvement with the notorious MS-13 street gang, which the White House maintains he is a member of.
He has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where he was allegedly driving a van full of other undocumented migrants. Charges in that case were not filed until May—well after Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint in Trump’s migrant crackdown—and were unsealed upon Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. this month.
Hernandez, now the DOJ’s star witness in its case against the Maryland father of three, who is married to an American, has had many more run-ins with U.S. law enforcement. He served time for three separate federal offenses: smuggling migrants, illegally reentering the country, and drunkenly discharging a firearm in a residential neighborhood.
He has been either arrested or in prison every year for the past decade, per the Post’s report. His record dates back to at least 2015, when he was fined for public intoxication in Virginia. A year later, Texas police arrested him for alleged possession of cocaine, and in 2017, he was picked up for driving under the influence with a handgun in the car.
Following his first removal in February 2018, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested him again after he had waded into the country from across the Rio Grande. He entered a guilty plea for crossing illegally and served 30 days before being deported again in May of that year.
Hernandez resurfaced in Mississippi the following December, when officers pulled him over to discover several undocumented migrants in his vehicle. He later admitted he had been transporting people into the country at $350 a head, pleaded guilty to human smuggling, and in 2020 was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
The latest incident took place in late 2022. Texas police arrested Hernandez, who appeared “highly intoxicated” at the time, after he was seen riding around a Montgomery County community firing a handgun from the passenger side of the vehicle in broad daylight, for which he received two years in prison.
ICE has further clarified that it does not plan to return the Maryland dad to his native El Salvador but rather to an unspecified “third country.” Under Trump’s nationwide deportation drive, a number of Latin American migrants have already found themselves removed to South Sudan, an East African nation ravaged by more than two years of civil war.
A federal judge allowed Abrego Garcia to be released on his own recognizance ahead of his smuggling trial. However, his lawyers begged to keep him in custody ahead of trial, as ICE signaled it would arrest and deport him as soon as he stepped free.
The DOJ accepted Abrego Garcia’s request to remain behind bars. His next hearing is scheduled for July 16.
Rutgers football: scenes from the Scarlet Walk
Rutgers football: scenes from the Scarlet Walk
Rutgers football needs two more victories to earn bowl eligibility.
It has a big opportunity to get one of those wins today.
The Scarlet Knights will host the Maryland Terrapins with a chance to pick up their fifth win of the season and second Big Ten victory.
Maryland is on a four-game losing streak.
Rutgers is looking to bounce back from a 35-13 loss at Illinois.
Here’s how to watch today’s game and some information to know:
What time is Rutgers vs. Maryland today?
The game is set to kick off at 2:30 p.m. ET. at SHI Stadium in Piscataway.
What channel is Rutgers vs. Maryland on today?
The game will be televised on FS1. Stream it on Fubo, with a free trial for new subscribers.
Rutgers vs. Maryland prediction, picks, odds
Give Greg Schiano credit for this: He’s never lost a team. And even when a season isn’t going well, it’s never gone completely off the rails. And that’s why I think the Scarlet Knights will find a way to get past Maryland. Yes, I know how had the Rutgers defense has been. But I think Rutgers’ offense, which certainly didn’t play well against a struggling Illinois defense, will be more productive against the Terrapins, who are giving up 380.9 yards per game. Maryland’s run defense is also vulnerable, allowing 154.6 yards on the ground per game. Both teams are having bad seasons. Rutgers managed to beat another struggling team in Purdue on the road. The Scarlet Knights should be able to get by Maryland at home. Score prediction: Rutgers 35, Maryland 31
Odds courtesy of Action Network as of Nov. 7.
Favorite: Rutgers by 2.5
Over/under: 57.5
Moneyline: Rutgers -130, Maryland +110
On November 6, the state of Maryland and Prince George’s county filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and General Services Administration (GSA). Kash Patel, Pamela Bondi, and Michael Rigas are listed as the defendants.
The lawsuit is in regard to the FBI’s proposed relocation from the Hoover Building to the Reagan Building. It comes a few months after the FBI announced its plans to vacate its Brutalist, Washington, D.C. headquarters—the J. Edgar Hoover Building designed by Charles F. Murphy—and move into the nearby Ronald Reagan Building, designed by James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.
This, according to Maryland government officials, is at odds with efforts dating back to 2011 between the FBI and the state.
The FBI had been weighing three sites in Landover and Greenbelt, Maryland; and Springfield, Virginia, for a new FBI headquarters. In 2022, two separate public laws were enacted that directed the GSA to choose one of the sites, and Congress to allocate over $1.1 billion to fund the project.
A site in Greenbelt, Maryland, was chosen for the new FBI headquarters in 2023. The agreement also dictated that a satellite office located within Washington, D.C. limits be identified to accommodate up to 1,000 FBI employees, so as to maintain proximity to the DOJ. An architect wasn’t commissioned for the project.
Criteria for the site was dictated by the following parameters: it be federally owned, less than 2 miles from a Metro station, within 2.5 miles of the Capital Beltway, and meet Interagency Security Committee Level V standards.
At a press briefing, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said yesterday: “We are asking the court to stop the unlawful selection of the Reagan Building, prevent the diversion of congressionally appropriated funds and ensure the federal government, the Trump administration, follows the law.”
All parties agree the Hoover Building is inadequate for servicing the FBI: Crumbling concrete, persistent water infiltration, lackluster security features, and other shortcomings make for a poor working environment, both Patel and the state of Maryland argue. But that’s beside the point.
Plaintiffs claim Patel, Bondi, Rigas, and the agencies they run, are trying to “unlawfully sabotage a multiyear collaborative effort to develop a new FBI headquarters complex in Greenbelt, Maryland” and “unlawfully divert funding that Congress designated for that project.”
When the FBI and GSA changed course in July, the appropriated funds allocated for the move to Maryland were instead redirected toward moving the FBI headquarters into the Reagan Building. Maryland claims this is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and argues it will deprive Prince George’s county of “transformative benefits” that would be had if the FBI moves into its borders. They ask that the FBI abandon its plans to relocate into the Reagan building.
“Maryland is going to fight this thing with everything that we have because in Maryland, we do not bend the knee,” Governor Wes Moore said. “So, if Donald Trump thinks that we are going to roll over when he tries to make life worse for our law enforcement, he better think twice, and we’ll see him in court.”
FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. (7News) — A death investigation is underway after Maryland state troopers found human skeletal remains in the woods in Frederick County on Wednesday afternoon.
According to Maryland State Police (MSP), state troopers responded to a wooded area on Interstate 70 and Green Valley Road in Frederick around 4 p.m. after Maryland Department of Natural Resources officers found what appeared to be human remains.
The discovery prompted MSP’s Criminal Enforcement Division and Homicide Unit investigators to arrive at the scene as well. The agency said crime scene techs from the Forensic Sciences Division processed the scene for evidence.
SEE ALSO | Maryland fire marshals say man blocked door, set multiple fires in Hagerstown apartment
The identity of the person has not been determined, and state troopers said they are waiting for autopsy results from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore.
Anyone with information relevant to the investigation is urged to call the MSP Frederick Barrack at 301-600-4151. Callers are allowed to be anonymous.
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