Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege Wednesday to avoid handing over documents in the legal battle over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, court records show. 

The Trump administration this week continued digging in on its claim that symbols tattooed on the fingers of Kilmar Abrego Garcia – a cross, a skull, a smiley face and a marijuana leaf – are proof that the man they wrongly deported to El Salvador is a member of MS-13.

But gang experts disagree, telling CNN that the tattoos alone are not proof of membership in the gang.

“I see a bunch of symbols that could be interpreted any number of ways,” Jorja Leap, a University of California, Los Angeles professor who has served as an expert gang witness in court, told CNN.

The president doubles down.

President Trump acknowledged that, if he wanted to, he could get Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States by calling El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and explaining that that’s what he wanted done. But, in a combative interview with ABC News, the president said he would not do that because Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 member.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was accused of being a gang member in 2018 court papers, The Post can reveal — as the fight continues over whether the deported illegal immigrant dad was a part of MS-13.

Abrego Garcia’s wife’s ex made the claim when he filed documents seeking an emergency court hearing on the custody of the couple’s two children.

“She is dating a gang member,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura’s ex, Edwin Trejo Ramos alleged in the petition filed in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in Maryland.

President Donald Trump has been sending undocumented immigrants to a mega prison in El Salvador without due process. Most of these deportees have no criminal record, yet our government has condemned them to indefinite incarceration in an infamously inhumane penitentiary.

In March 2019, an immigration judge denied a bond request from Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, writing that the determination he is a gang member "appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record," citing a police department’s gang interview field sheet. The decision was upheld on appeal.

The Supreme Court ruled on the evening of April 10 that the Trump administration must comply with a lower court’s order to “facilitate” the release from custody of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was deported without a hearing to a mega prison in El Salvador. The case underscores the issue of due process and what legal protections are afforded to noncitizens.

House Democrats who traveled to El Salvador to seek the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia have written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding "daily proof of life" after being denied a meeting with the Salvadoran national who was deported from Maryland. 

The Maryland senator put a wedge between Trump and Salvadoran dictator Bukele and showed Democrats how to find their spines.

Joan Walsh

On Sunday, Senator Chris Van Hollen conquered all five morning talk shows. He was by far the most coveted guest after his return from El Salvador, where he stood down the country’s despot and secured a meeting with the illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Van Hollen delivered love from Abrego Garcia’s family and his growing legion of advocates and proved that the 29-year-old father is alive and safe—at least for now.

He shouldn’t be in a prison in El Salvador, but he also never should have escaped deportation for so long.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia shouldn’t be in a prison in El Salvador, but he also never should have been in the United States or given relief from deportation.

The White House is trying to make the alleged MS-13 gang member a symbol of illegal-immigrant crime, while Trump’s opposition is seeking to make “the Maryland man” a symbol of the administration’s disregard for due process.