Karoline Leavitt debunks The Atlantic over article on deported 'Maryland dad'—says he's a leader, member of MS-13

The Atlantic ran a sympathetic piece highlighting an alleged MS-13 gang member who was deported to a prison in El Salvador, characterizing the foreign national as a “Maryland dad” and noting that he was deported to the prison due to an "administrative error." In response to questions on the matter, and the error, during the White House press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a reporter that the error was merely "clerical." Leavitt said "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, ambitious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one. Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. In 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," Leavitt continued, "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. 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. And the President, the Attorney General, everyone who has been involved in these operations is focused on eradicating these criminals and terrorists from our communities."

Although the man in question, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is a father that was living in Maryland, Vice President JD Vance posted in response to the report from the Atlantic, “My comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn’t read he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.”

“My further comment is that it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize,” Vance added.

Leavitt was asked about Vance's allegation, and the evidence he has to "back that up." In response, she said, "There's a lot of evidence in the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence, and I saw it this morning."

In 2019, Garcia was denied bond after an informant alleged that he was a member of MS-13, and ordered to be deported after entering the US in 2011. According to News Nation, a judge granted him an asylum request despite the allegation. However, he was not convicted of any gang crimes in the US.

In a court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said that Garcia had been deported to El Salvador “because of an administrative error.”

He was part of the group of gang members that were deported under the Enemy Aliens Act from the United States to El Salvador, where the US is paying $6 million per year to hold them there. The deportations from the Trump administration have been under legal dispute and an order from US District Court Judge James Boasberg said that the administration could not engage in the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration instead has continued deportations under different law.

Garcia's lawyer said in response to the deportation, "They claim that the court is powerless to order any relief. If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless—all of them—because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done."

Garcia, as well as his legal representation, has disputed that he is a member of MS-13 and has alleged in a court filing that the US "government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation."

The Trump administration wrote in its legal filing, that the "issue was actually litigated and decided in his bond hearing in 2019. IJ Order 2–3 ('Respondent failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13' and he 'has failed to present evidence to rebut that assertion.')."

"He appealed that decision to the appropriate administrative review body, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which adopted and affirmed the immigration judge’s 'danger ruling' notwithstanding Abrego Garcia’s arguments," the filing added.

Vance wrote further on the issue, "Kyle Cheney, a ‘legal affairs reporter’ is apparently unable or unwilling to look at the facts here. In 2019, an Immigration Judge (under the first Trump administration) determined that the deported man was, in fact, a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner.”

"It is telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an innocent ‘father of 3’ was apprehended by a gulag. Here are the relevant facts,” Vance continued.

"1) The man is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country. 2) An immigration judge determined he was a member of the MS-13 gang. 3) Because he is not a citizen, he does not get a full jury trial by peers. In other words, whatever ‘due process’ he was entitled to, he received."