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Dennis Donovan

(30,492 posts) Mon Apr 21, 2025, 12:26 PM Monday

Rex Huppke: Wrongly deported Abrego Garcia has tattoo, a Bulls hat. So do I. Am I in MS-13? Opinion

Rex Huppke - Wrongly deported Abrego Garcia has tattoo, a Bulls hat. So do I. Am I in MS-13? | Opinion

If you're American or even just in America, regardless of your immigration status, the U.S. Constitution guarantees your right to due process. Period. That's not up for debate.

Rex Huppke
USA TODAY

Like many Americans following the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man our government wrongly deported due to an “administrative error,” I’ve started wondering if I might be a member of a violent transnational Salvadoran gang.

President Donald Trump and officials from his administration, despite acknowledging the “Oops! We accidentally deported you!” part of the story in court documents, continue insisting Abrego Garcia is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang. They have not provided what people who watch legal dramas on TV call “evidence” to convincingly support that claim, but they’ll be darned if they won’t keep making it.

Over the weekend, the actual president of the United States of America posted a probably doctored photo of Abrego Garcia’s hand on social media. The Maryland father has actual tattoos on four of his fingers, but in the photo Trump was holding, someone seems to have photoshopped “M,” “S,” “1” and “3” on four of Garcia’s fingers in an utterly unconvincing font.

Trump's tattoo interpretation in Abrego Garcia case seems shady
The real finger tattoos are a marijuana leaf, a smiley face with X’s for eyes, a cross and a skull. If the Trump administration is to be believed, which it most definitely is not, each symbol stands for one of the characters in “MS13.” (I’m not sure why they’d skip the dash in MS-13. After all, there’s a fifth finger to use.) The White House offered no explanation of its apparent tattoo code-breaking.