White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has pushed back on a recent article from The Atlantic that claimed the Trump administration mistakenly deported a Maryland father who held protected legal status. The piece, published Monday, alleged that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly sent to El Salvador due to a clerical error.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Leavitt offered a detailed rebuttal to the report, asserting that the deported individual was not an innocent victim but a known member of the MS-13 gang. The White House emphasized that MS-13 was recently designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by President Donald Trump. “The error that you are referring to was a clerical error. It was an administrative error. 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. That is fact number one,” Leavitt stated.
“Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. The administration’s position is clear that any erroneous reporting that labels the deportation as a mistake overlooks critical intelligence gathered on Garcia’s activities,” she continued. “Fact number three, 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 number four 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 highlighted the administration’s dedication to public safety and its responsibility to eliminate dangerous elements from American communities, especially in regions impacted by MS-13 activities.
“It is a promise he campaigned on. It is a promise he is keeping. And every single person in this room should be grateful for that, considering especially MS-13 is very prevalent and prominent here in the District of Columbia, in Maryland, and in Virginia,” she said. Garcia, who was removed from the U.S. earlier this month, is now being held at the CECOT prison in El Salvador—a facility known for housing the country’s most dangerous criminals and gang leaders.