Ábrego García, 29, came to the US from El Salvador illegally around 2011
President Donald Trump has pointed to four tattoos on Kilmar Abrego García’s knuckles — a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull — as definitive proof that the Maryland man is an MS-13 gang member who should not be allowed back into the United States.
But law enforcement officials, gang researchers, and Abrego García’s attorneys argue that the tattoos do not confirm any gang affiliation — and were never considered evidence in court or immigration proceedings. Experts have also noted that the use of tattoos as gang identifiers has been in decline for years, particularly within MS-13.
John Colello, homicide chief for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, where MS-13 originated in the 1980s, said that a tattoo alone, without additional context, could not serve as the sole basis to determine gang membership.
Trump reiterated his tattoo claim during an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, urging the public to look at Abrego García’s hand and asserting that it was “clear as can be” that he was MS-13. His administration also circulated an image online falsely alleging that the tattoos spelled out “M-S-1-3.”
However, experts interviewed by The Washington Post dismissed the claim. While a few acknowledged having seen individual elements like a marijuana leaf on gang members before, none recognised the full combination or arrangement as indicative of MS-13.
Steven Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime and author of MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang, stated that the pattern was not known and argued that focusing on it missed the broader issue. He stressed that tattoos alone could not determine gang affiliation and, even if they could, such assumptions did not negate someone’s right to due process.
An Arrest Built on Thin Evidence
Abrego García was detained in 2019 in a Home Depot parking lot in Maryland, where he and three other Latino men had gathered looking for work. The arrest began with a local officer and escalated when a gang detective, Ivan Mendez, identified García as a possible MS-13 member. Mendez reportedly based this assessment on García’s clothing — including a Chicago Bulls cap — and unnamed informants. Tattoos were not mentioned as part of this evaluation.
Mendez would later face misconduct charges in an unrelated case, including allegations that he provided investigative information to a sex worker.
Although an immigration judge in 2019 ordered that Abrego García not be deported, the Trump administration violated that directive and sent him back to El Salvador. His case has since become central to a legal and political standoff over whether the US must repatriate him.
“He Thought Tattoos Were Cool”
According to his attorneys, Abrego García never implied that his tattoos had any gang significance. In 2019, he told his lawyer that the tattoos were chosen for personal reasons — a star on his elbow to represent the Dallas Cowboys, a heartbeat design near his wrist that matched a former girlfriend’s tattoo, and the knuckle images simply because he liked how they looked.
His wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told The Post that he thought tattoos were “cool.” His attorney, Lucia Curiel, indicated that the tattoos were not even brought up in court until Trump began citing them publicly. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, another lawyer on the case, said the tattoos were irrelevant — and remained so.
Experts: Tattoos Don’t Equal Guilt
Experts have consistently warned that drawing conclusions about gang affiliation based on body art is flawed and outdated. They note that MS-13 members, especially younger ones, have increasingly avoided tattoos to escape detection. Suffolk County prosecutor Raymond Tierney, who has handled MS-13 cases since the early 2010s, explained that tattooing has become less common and more discreet.
Jeannette Aguilar, a security analyst based in El Salvador, highlighted a deeper contradiction in the government’s claim. After being deported to El Salvador, Abrego García was initially held at the country’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center. But he was later transferred to Santa Ana — a semi-open penitentiary specifically for inmates without gang affiliations.
Aguilar remarked that if Abrego García truly were a member of MS-13, he would never have been placed in that facility. She also pointed out that the Salvadoran neighbourhood where he grew up was under the control of Barrio 18, a rival gang to MS-13. His family, she noted, had fled to the US to escape threats from Barrio 18, making it all the more unlikely that he would join MS-13 after arriving in the US.
A Manufactured Crisis
Despite this, some Trump supporters have continued to defend the tattoo narrative. Former corrections officer Leandro Paulino speculated that the skull could be a symbolic reference to the number “3,” since cráneo begins with the third letter of the Spanish alphabet. However, others — including writer Roberto Lovato — contacted current and former gang members and found no one who identified the symbols as MS-13 codes.
Dudley criticised the administration’s focus on tattoos, saying it distracted from the more pressing issue: the government deported someone in direct violation of a judge’s order.
Regardless of whether Abrego García has any gang ties — and no court has established that he does — he was entitled to legal due process. Instead, his case has become a political spectacle, his life suspended between Washington, a Salvadoran prison, and a White House intent on defending its immigration crackdown.
