WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating a traffic stop of Kilmar Abgrego Garcia, when he was pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol in 2022, sources tell ABC News.

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national who made headline news after he was deported from Maryland to an El Salvador prison by the Trump Administration. Abrego Garcia had entered the U.S. illegally in 2011, but in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge ruled that he was shielded from deportation after determining that he could face persecution by Salvadoran gangs.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol released body camera footage, first obtained by Fox News, of their encounter with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in November 2022.

READ | Tennessee Highway Patrol shares body cam footage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia traffic stop

At the time, state troopers suspected that Abrego Garcia was involved with human trafficking, and he was pulled over for a speeding violation. He had eight other people in the car with him at the time. Abrego Garcia told police that they had been working on a construction job in Missouri. Abrego Garcia was not given a ticket by the troopers and allowed to continue on.

Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, 38, was the registered owner of a vehicle driven by Abrego Garcia, sources told ABC News.

The federal agents who have been looking into the traffic stop questioned Hernandez-Reyes last month at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama and told them that he hired Abrego Garcia several times to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to other locations in the U.S., the sources told ABC News.

7News has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment and further details into their investigation.