White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday mocked press coverage of the Trump administration’s wrongful deportation of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
“Based on the sensationalism of many of the people in this room, you would think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year,” Leavitt said to reporters who gathered for the White House press briefing. “That’s because unfortunately many in this country care more about this quote-unquote Maryland father, an illegal alien MS-13 gang member, than a Maryland mother and an American citizen who was brutally murdered at the hands of a different illegal alien.”
The White House has consistently attacked Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has no criminal record, as a “terrorist” and a “gang member.” Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who came to the U.S. illegally in 2011. Federal immigration authorities tried to deport him in 2019, citing a confidential informant who claimed Abrego Garcia was part of the MS-13 gang. An immigration judge said he was likely a gang member in 2019. But the courts agreed to not deport him because he had a credible fear of harm in El Salvador. His lawyers have denied gang ties.
Federal immigration officials arrested him on March 12, wrongly telling him that his immigration “status has changed” and sending him to El Salvador three days later. The Trump administration mistakenly deported him after space on a deportation plane became available. While the administration acknowledged it was an “administrative error,” it repeatedly claimed it had no power to return him. He remains imprisoned in the notorious Salvadoran prison CECOT.
During an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele argued he had no power to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. — just after Attorney General Pam Bondi said the responsibility falls to El Salvador.
