White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on a report from The Atlantic claiming the Trump administration mistakenly deported a Maryland father with legal protections.
In a Tuesday briefing, Leavitt said Kilmar Abrego Garcia was not wrongfully deported, but a confirmed member of the MS-13 gang.
She stated that MS-13 was recently designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by President Trump, and credible intelligence linked Garcia to human trafficking. “This individual was a leader in a brutal gang,” Leavitt said, adding that terrorists no longer have legal protections in the U.S.
She emphasized that removing such individuals is part of the administration’s public safety mission. Garcia is now imprisoned at El Salvador’s CECOT facility, known for housing the country’s most dangerous criminals.
Leavitt called the deportation a promise kept by President Trump.
