President Donald Trump defended the deportation of illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a fiery interview with ABC, pointing to a photo he shared on social media clearly showing the notorious gang’s name tattooed across Abrego Garcia’s knuckles.
Other recent photos of the illegal alien, however, do not appear to show the tattoo, Fox News Digital found.
“Ask any law or immigration enforcement official who’s been on the ground about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos: they’re MS-13,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News Digital Wednesday when asked about other photos appearing not to show “MS13” tattooed on Abrego Garcia’s hand. “An ICE investigation, a local police investigation, and the government of El Salvador have all determined that he is a wife-beating MS-13 terrorist illegal alien who should never have been in the United States. There is no dispute about these facts.”
Trump joined ABC News for an interview in the Oval Office that aired on Trump’s 100th day back in the White House, where he defended that Abrego Garcia had “MS13” scrawled across his hand.
“On his knuckles he had MS-13,” Trump told ABC in an interview that aired Tuesday, referring to Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador’s notorious high-security prison CECOT in March before he was moved to another detention center in the country earlier in April.
“He had some tattoos that were interpreted that way,” ABC’s Terry Moran replied.
“M-S-1-3 — It says M-S-one-three,” Trump continued in the interview.
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“That was Photoshop,” Moran responded while attempting to change the topic of conversation.
Trump shared a photo to his social media accounts April 18 showing a man’s hand with “MS-13” tattooed across his knuckles above other tattoos, such as a marijuana leaf, smiley face, cross and a depiction of a human skull.
Trump continued that Moran was doing “such a disservice” by claiming a photo clearly showing “MS-13” tattooed across the hand was “Photoshopped,” arguing Moran was spreading “fake news.”
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“Fair enough, he did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way,” Moran added during the interview. “I’m not an expert on them.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia meets with Sen. Van Hollen, D-Md. (X / @ChrisVanHollen)
Fox News Digital examined two separate photos of Abrego Garcia shared with the media in recent weeks that do not appear to show the MS-13 tattoo.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who struck an agreement with the Trump administration to accept thousands of violent gang members illegally living in the U.S. and house them in a high-security prison in the country, shared a photo of Abrego Garcia after his arrival to El Salvador in March that does not appear to show “MS13” tattooed across his hand.
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office holding a photo of the tattoos on Abrego Garcia’s knuckles that the White House says are affiliated with the MS-13 terrorist group. (Donald Trump TRUTH Social)
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“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture”, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador,” Bukele posted to X April 17, accompanied by photos of Abrego Garcia shaking hands with Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited El Salvador in April to protest the Trump administration’s deportation of the man.
The photo shows other tattoos across Abrego Garcia’s knuckles — including the marijuana leaf, smiley face, cross and human skull tattoos — but does not appear to show “MS13” like in the photo shared by Trump.
Another photo shared by CASA, an immigration activist group, earlier in April showed a separate photo of Abrego Garcia with his young son that also did not appear to show the tattoo. Fox News Digital reached out to CASA for additional details and comment on the matter, but did not immediately receive a reply Wednesday morning.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Abrego Gacria’s attorney for comment on the photos and reported MS-13 tattoo, but did not immediately receive replies.
Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally from his home country in El Salvador in 2011 and was issued a deportation order in 2019, Fox News Digital previously reported. Trump administration officials acknowledged in court in March that his March 15 deportation had been an administrative error, but have since defended the deportation and argued that El Salvador could release him if the nation chose to do so.
Abrego Garcia was suspected of partaking in labor/human trafficking, according to a 2022 Homeland Security Investigations report previously obtained by Fox News. The report also stated that “official law enforcement investigations” revealed that Abrego Garcia was a member of the notorious gang MS-13, which Trump has designated as a terror organization.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been on an illegal immigration crackdown. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Abrego Garcia was pulled over by a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper Dec. 1, 2022, after he spotted the car speeding and not remaining in its lane, according to the Homeland Security Investigations report.
The trooper noticed eight individuals in the car with Abrego Garcia, who said he began driving three days prior from Houston to Temple Hills, Maryland, via St. Louis to “perform construction work,” Fox Digital previously reported. The report states that the trooper suspected the group was involved with a human trafficking incident, as there was no luggage in the vehicle.
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New documents further revealed that Abrego Garcia was driving a black 2001 Chevrolet Suburban that he said belonged to his “boss.” The Suburban was identified by the Department of Homeland Security as belonging to Hernandez Reyes, who pleaded guilty to human smuggling after being caught in Mississippi in a car with passengers from Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras, Fox Digital previously reported.
President Donald Trump, right, shakes the hand of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, April 14, 2025. (Pool via AP)
The Homeland Security Investigations report also notes that in October 2019, the Prince Georges County Police Gang Unit identified Abrego Garcia as a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang.
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Abrego Garcia was also recently revealed to have a record of being a “violent” repeat wife beater, according to court records filed in a Prince George’s County, Maryland, district court by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez.
His wife, however, has since publicly defended him.
“I find myself pleading with the Trump administration and the Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar,” she said earlier this month before a federal court judge. “Our family is torn apart during this scary time. Our children miss their dad so much.”
Gang members seen in a cell at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, in San Vicente, El Salvador on April 04, 2025. (Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The deportation has been wrapped up in court proceedings since last month, with a Maryland federal judge ordering the Department of justice to “take all available steps to facilitate” his return to the U.S., which was a ruling upheld by an appeals court and the the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Trump administration, however, contends that “cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations” with El Salvador to secure the release.
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“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the Trump administration’s Supreme Court petition earlier this month, the New York Post reported.
Fox News’ Stepheny Price, David Spunt and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
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