President Donald Trump posed in the Oval Office Friday with what appeared to be a digitally altered image depicting the hand of a Maryland father who was deported to a brutal El Salvador prison following officials’ unproven claims he is part of the MS-13 gang.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the subject of a string of court orders up to the nation’s top court demanding that the Trump administration “facilitate” his return to the United States, where he has been living for the last 14 years. The administration, however, has insisted without evidence that he is a gang member, even though officials initially admitted his deportation was an administrative “error.”
Now, the president posted what he claims to be such evidence — a black-and-white photograph of Abrego Garcia’s tattooed knuckles, including “MS-13” written out above four symbols — that many internet sleuths are already saying was photoshopped.
The Independent has reached out to the White House and a lawyer for Abrego Garcia for comment.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person.’ They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles,” the president posted on Truth Social on Friday evening.
Administration officials in court filings have pointed to a protective order filed by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in 2021; she dissolved the order a month later, and was never “beaten up.”
“I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job” Trump continued.
Government attorneys have never referenced the tattoos in court filings to support their claims that he is a gang member. Their allegation rests on the word of a confidential police informant who in 2019 claimed Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13’s “Westerns” clique, which operates out of New York, where Abrego Garcia has never lived.
Several social media users expressed doubt over the authenticity of the image.
Linda Higgins, a former Minnesota state senator, wrote on X: “Hey Old Man, @realDonaldTrump , have someone teach you about Photoshop. This is an excellent example of altering a photo, in this case to make your illegal actions look good. But instead you look foolish.”
“‘MS-13’ looks like it was typed on the photo,” one user remarked.
Another commented: “Ummmm. Pardon my cynicism but you can see that looks clearly photoshopped right? Right?”
Images of Abrego Garcia posted on his wife’s TikTok account also capture the knuckle ink but don’t have “MS-13” spelled out.
Some social media sleuths, however, claim his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, has been trying to “censor” his tattoos, pointing to her April 6 post. Red heart emojis cover his hand, which is draped around her in the photo.
The president issued his statement with the photo just hours after Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who came to El Salvador in the hopes of aiding in Abrego Garcia’s release, gave a press conference explaining his meeting with the detained man and the strange events that followed.
Nayib Bukele, the country’s president, posted photos of the pair’s meeting at the senator’s hotel that featured salt-rimmed glasses that he claimed were “margaritas.”
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ [and] ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele mocked in a social media post on Thursday. “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
The dressed-up glasses were placed on the table by Bukele’s aides, Van Hollen said at a Friday news conference.
“When I first sat down we just had glasses of water on the table, maybe some coffee,” Van Hollen said. “As we were talking, [an] official came over and put two other glasses on the table … This is a lesson, the lengths President Bukele would do to deceive people about what’s going on.”
He added that Bukele’s aides initially tried to stage the meeting near the hotel’s pool.
“They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big, fat lie,” the senator said.
After Bukele posted the photos, a handful of rightwing internet personalities and Republican lawmakers became laser-focused on Abrego Garcia’s hand tattoos.
“That’s an interesting tattoo for just a regular ‘Maryland man’ to have on his hand,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson remarked in a post that included a zoomed-in photo of Abrego Garcia’s hand. This image also doesn’t feature “MS-13” written out.
On Thursday, an appeals court unanimously rejected the administration’s request to block a court order to enforce a Supreme Court ruling requiring the government to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” one of the appellate judges wrote.
