Summary

Trump reportedly held up a digitally altered image of the hand of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported by the Trump administration, in an attempt to prove Garcia is a gang member.

Trump can be seen holding a printed-out photo… demonstrating that “MS-13” is tattooed across his knuckles.

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back,” Trump posted. However, many have pointed out that the image appears photoshopped.

“MS-13 looks like it was typed on the photo.” “Needing to have a photo doctored… is definitely something a psychopath would do.”

  • Hikuro-93@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Even if that’s real, which doesn’t look like it, what’s keeping them from forcing Mr. Garcia onto a chair, hold him down, while they tattoo it?

    This administration and their dictator allies have shown to have no constraints, no guardrails, time and time again. Consistently. You can always blindly trust them to bs and lie their way through anything.

    You gonna tell me people who tried to stage Mr. Garcia sipping some Margaritas by a hotel pool wouldn’t stoop so low as to place fake tattoos on him? Yeah, that’s the thing with dishonesty - even if you tell the truth once it’s still gonna be called into question. The boy who cried wolf, and all that.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    These people are so fucking stupid. Footage from the Van Hollan meeting will come out soon and show this is clearly not a thing.

  • Bosht@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I really have to think at this point there’s some really heinous shit they’re doing while everyone hyperfocuses on this. It’s the only logical reason they’d keep up the charade after it’s been proven it’s absolute fucking bullshit.

  • NoSuchAgency@reddthat.com
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    4 months ago

    It’s not photoshopped. Why do you think in the wife’s posts, she tries to cleverly cover his hand? The guy got pulled over with 8 people in his car also, traveling from Texas to Maryland, and when asked for their addresses, everyone of them gave his address in Maryland. The guy was arrested with other MS13 gang members to and was identified by an informant as being member of the gang. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck… https://redstate.com/beccalower/2025/04/18/leftists-are-losing-their-minds-over-trump-photo-of-abrego-garcias-ms-13-tattoos-here-are-the-receipts-n2188040

  • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    You mean the US government had someone they considered a terrorist and instead of holding them, they released them?

  • barnaclebutt@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Also, weren’t they already claiming he was part of some Venezuelan gang? MS-13 is an American gang of jailed Latinos.

  • SarcasticMan@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    So first things first man, if you have gang ink they photograph that shit and validate them. He was arrested in 2019 so, show me his ink and the photos they took of it when they arrested him.

  • Pavidus@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Alright, I’ll take the bait. Let’s all assume he has an MS-13 tattoo. What does this change? The dude still gets his constitutional rights, and his day in court. On US soil.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      And on top of all that, even if somehow you could justify foregoing due process, the dude STILL can’t legally be sent to El Salvador because of his withholding of removal to that country which I’m pretty sure is what the"administrative error" was that the white house admitted lol.

    • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is what they always do, get you arguing about something that doesn’t matter. Just eats up time and energy about nothing.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The goal is to use fear, hatred, bigotry etc as a means to normalize authoritarianism and the destruction of rights, in exchange for non-existent “security” and “protection”.

        See terrorism and pedophilia.

      • MBech@feddit.dk
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        4 months ago

        I think this whole Garcia deportation is part of that. It wasn’t supposed to in the beginning, but they’re cooking with what they have.

        Instead of talking about how fucking insane it is to deporting people to a death camp without any due process. We’re now talking about how insane it is to deport someone who wasn’t “supposed” to be deported to a death camp, and then refuse to do the bare minimum to get him back.

        They’ve made sure we ignore the hundreds of people getting removed with no sign of evidence against their crimes.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          You just made my stomach hurt. Thanks. I’m glad you pointed this out to me and I wish I had been smart enough to see it for myself.

        • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          This is exactly it. They flood the stage with all sorts of distractions, and then run with whatever issue gets traction. While everyone is focused on this one guy, dozens of others with the same non-criminal background are forgotten about, because they have nobody to support them, or their family didn’t spot an identifying tattoo in a propaganda photo.

          Eventually they’ll let this guy go, and everyone will celebrate, and the Nazis will act insulted, while secretly cebrating that dozens of equally innocent people will still endure life sentences in a torture prison for the crime of being born brown.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    Never mind the top, what’s up with the words underneath? No one would have their tattoo pics labeled for clarity like that.

  • MedicsOfAnarchy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Does the shadow in the belly button match the shadow cast by the hand? Does he have an “outie”? Caveat: I’m not a Photoshop sleuth

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It kind of looks like annotation to imply that the symbols actually on his hand mean MS-13, but I’d easily believe Trump is dumb enough to think he has “M S 1 3” printed in Arial font on his fingers.

    If it is an annotation…show us those court records, you fascist son of a bitch.

    • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It looks like people believe the M S 1 3 annotations are what they are saying is on his hand. We’re in some dire straits.

      The annotations are bullshit tho

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, they think that the evidence is the annotations and ignore them as being annotations as a bad faith argument.

        Do the symbols on his knuckles means “MS13”? That is up for debate without supporting evidence from those who have relevant knowledge and authority on the subject, which DHS has not validated as of yet but the arresting officers in a 2019 incident when he was arrested with two others that were also “MS13 affiliated” by the local PD; if that was out of authority or guilt by proximity is up for debate.

        Is it plausible that a gang member has coded tattoos? Absolutely because gangs do use symbols to code like white power people use 1488 and similar. To be fair members of MS13 and similar tend to be more blatant with their tattoos, but it may offer a tactical advantage to be more obtuse in tattoos depending on the individual’s role in the organization. So him not having “MS13” tattooed on his face is not necessary absolute proof that he is unaffiliated.

        He was alleged to be affiliated to MS13 by an informant, who is advantaged by lying financially and legally. $100 bucks can make a guy busted for drug trafficking say anything to avoid the consequences of his actions.

        His wife censors his tattoos in her calls for his return, which implies she knows the tattoos are a optics problem and she has also avoided admitting or denying any past gang affiliation. Not damning, but draw enough points and you can draw a line.

        Could he have been a victim of circumstances and has a checkered past due to where he grew up and has been trying to reform himself and be a decent, honest, and lawful person? Absolutely, but his traffick stop in 2022 sure is questionable.

        At the end of the day he was here illegally and two judges have decided he was at one time an MS13 member based on the information available to them, which is greater than we are privileged to.

        You can disagree with deporting him because a prior administration decided he should not be immediately be deported, but administrations change and so can the decisions of a prior administration with a new administration.

        How he is treated in his home country is a concern, but that is a concern of his family and the people of El Salvador who advocate on behalf of the imprisoned, not the American government because he is not a naturalized citizen.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          At the end of the day he was here illegally

          Actually, at the time he was kidnapped he was a legal resident and the administration had court orders specifically not to send him to El Salvador. Anything anyone tries to say about his tattoos, one way or another, is completely irrelevant nonsense and attempting to defend the administration’s actions against him is a moral evil.

        • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          From what I read his parents owned a store that started getting extorted, which is why he fled El Salvador originally at 16 to live with relatives in the US. Whether he is or was in a gang or not in a gang is completely irrelevant to the fact that people have a right to due process. Maybe he does deserve to be deported, but what has been done to him is not a deportation. Also a changing administration does not have any relevance to the court decision allowing him to live in the US, unless you’re suggesting the rule of law ended too? Until a judge says otherwise, he can not legally be deported to El Salvador. What has been done to him is a crime.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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          4 months ago

          You can disagree with deporting him because a prior administration decided he should not be immediately be deported, but administrations change and so can the decisions of a prior administration with a new administration.

          NOEM v. ABREGO GARCIA is pretty clear.

      • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        The annotations are bullshit tho

        How so? Marijuana, Smile are pretty clear, the cross you can see in place of 1 on other MS13 tattoos (using image search of MS13 tattoos).

        The only one I’m not sure of is the skull, but the available image is a bit blurry. Maybe the 2 eye holes plus the nose hole?

    • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      It’s so obvious that the letters and numbers are there to show what the tattooed symbols represent. I feel like I’m in bizarro world that people don’t understand that and think they’ve found some smoking gun.

      It doesn’t change the need for due process, but come on people.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Trump’s own words indicated that he thought the MS13 tattoos were on the knuckles, which is where the Arial font characters are. So either Trump doesn’t know what a knuckle is, or he was speaking imprecisely, or he’s a fucking moron, or all of the above.

        In any case, as someone pointed out above, it’s unlikely MS13 would be working with acronyms in English for their tattoos, especially acronyms in English that only 50% work because Marijuana Smiley Cross Skull says MSCS, not MS13.

        • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          You don’t think Marijuana is an English word, do you?

          Smile is sonrisa in Spanish, also…

          The skull is still a puzzler though.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The problem is, that’s even dumber. No matter how you twist it, the whole thing falls apart at the skull. Mind you, even the others are already a massive stretch.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        Ultimately I think you’re right, but on the other hand, do your really expect Mr Weather Map Sharpie to not try to pass off dumb blatant lies?

      • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, that seems obvious to me too. I’ve got no clue how the symbols are supposed to represent the letters though. I’ve a friend who has similar symbols on her fingers and they don’t stand for anything, they just look cool.

          • kronisk @lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            The explanation I read is that skull is cranéo in spanish - “cranium” - which would give us C = 3rd letter of the alphabet. The jury is still out on the cross, but perhaps “god is number one” or something. Never mind that actual MS-13 members have no qualms about tattooing the actual letters all over their bodies instead of elaborate ciphers…

            None of this matters though, focus should be kept on the right to due process. They can smear him all they want, it doesn’t change the facts.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        But others of this gang don’t have cryptic tattoos, so where are they getting this meaning from? Not to mention a quick search of MS13 tattoos does not show this.