White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped at reporters Tuesday who dared to question the deportation of a Maryland dad to an El Salvador prison in an “administrative error.”
Leavitt claimed 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia—whose family says he is as a father to a “severely disabled” child and a sheet metal apprentice—is actually a “leader” in the brutal MS-13 gang.
She was questioned on exactly why Vice President JD Vance called Garcia “convicted,” when there appear to be no public records that he is. Instead she attacked The Atlantic, which was one of many outlets to cover the deportation.
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“I would like to point out that if you just saw the headline from the insane, failing Atlantic magazine this morning, you would think this individual was father of the year, living in Maryland, living a peaceful life, when that couldn’t be further from the truth,” she claimed.
Leavitt produced no proof to back that statement beyond claiming she had viewed “evidence” from the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday that determined Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who came to the U.S. at 16, was indeed a gang member.
Such evidence is yet to reach the public eye, however, and is seemingly yet to reach the desks of government lawyers. Trump administration attorneys conceded Monday that Abrego Garcia was deported “because of an administrative error.”
That concession came in response to a lawsuit filed by Abrego Garcia’s loved ones who noted he had legal status as an asylum seeker, had no criminal record, and is married to a U.S. citizen.
A federal judge said that—despite the government admitting its mistake—it could not order Abrego Garcia to be returned stateside because he is not in U.S. custody. El Salvador is being paid $6 million by the Trump administration to jail him and others, meaning it is up to the Central American country to ultimately determine his fate. The judge, Paula Xinis, was an Obama appointee.
It is likely El Salvador—a staunch MAGA ally under President Nayib Bukele—would turn Abrego Garcia over if Trump or his proxies asked, but Leavitt made clear Tuesday that will not be happening.
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.
The Trump spokesperson then unleashed a prepared rant on the issue.
“That is fact No. 1,” she said of Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang affiliation. “Fact No. 2, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. Fact No. 3, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang, which this president has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Fact No. 4 is that foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore, and it is within the president’s executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities.”
Leavitt then told White House reporters they should be particularly grateful Abrego Garcia was deported because he lived in Beltsville, Maryland—a suburb of the nation’s capital that would apparently put him in proximity to those in the briefing room.
Abrego Garcia was arrested on March 12 after ICE officers pulled him over as he drove with his 5-year-old son, who is autistic and disabled, in the back seat, his lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Officers allowed Abrego Garcia to call his wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, to come and pick their child up, his lawyers said, but he was then whisked away and bounced between ICE facilities. Days later, he was flown to El Salvador without his family receiving notice, his family claims, with his wife only learning of his fate after she recognized his tattoos and scars in a press photo of inmates in El Salvador.
Vasquez Sura did not respond to a call and texts from the Daily Beast on Tuesday.
Abrego Garcia’s family said they hired a lawyer to represent him in El Salvador, only to learn that he faces no criminal charges in the country. He also did not go before an immigration judge in the U.S. prior to his removal.
Now, Abrego Garcia’s family’s attorney writes that he is being held in a counter-terrorism facility that is infamous for its hellish conditions—like confining inmates to their cells for all but 30 minutes a day, denying access to outdoors, and allowing no access to reading materials, including letters from loved ones or friends.
