The Trump administration this week continued digging in on its claim that symbols tattooed on the fingers of Kilmar Abrego Garcia – a cross, a skull, a smiley face and a marijuana leaf – are proof that the man they wrongly deported to El Salvador is a member of MS-13.
But gang experts disagree, telling CNN that the tattoos alone are not proof of membership in the gang.
“I see a bunch of symbols that could be interpreted any number of ways,” Jorja Leap, a University of California, Los Angeles professor who has served as an expert gang witness in court, told CNN.
“There is nothing in those tattoos that is definitively gang representative.”
As part of its ever-evolving efforts to demonstrate Abrego Garcia’s alleged association with the notorious transnational criminal organization, which the Salvadoran national’s family and attorneys deny, the White House posted a picture on social media earlier this month of President Donald Trump holding a picture of Abrego Garcia’s finger tattoos while seated at his desk in the Oval Office.
Above and below the tattoos appeared to be digitally added annotations: Above the cannabis leaf is the letter “M.” Below it is the word “marijuana.” The smiley face is framed by the letter “S” and the word “smile.” The cross lies between the number of “1” and the word “cross,” while the skull is bookended by the number of “3” and word “skull.”
Other pictures of Abrego Garcia’s hand show just the symbols are tattooed, without letters, numbers or words.
But in his interview with ABC on Tuesday to mark the 100th day of his second term, Trump appeared to indicate that he either didn’t know the picture he held was digitally altered, or didn’t care.
“On his knuckles, he had MS-13,” the president told ABC’s Terry Moran. The journalist tried correcting the president. Trump waved the attempt off.
“Don’t do that,” Trump interrupted. “It says ‘M, S, 1, 3.’” Trump scoffed when Moran said the letters were photoshopped onto the image.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia said in a statement: “None of the material being cited publicly has been introduced in court.”
“The government should bring him back and give him a full and fair trial in front of the same immigration judge who heard the case in 2019,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, referencing the judge who ordered Abrego Garcia not be deported to El Salvador.
Asked on Wednesday whether it is the White House’s position that those exact numbers and letters are tattooed onto Abrego Garcia’s hand, a spokesperson did not directly answer.
“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 spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.
But experts with years of experience studying the gang tell CNN they disagree.
“These are definitely NOT MS-13 tattoos,” Thomas Ward, a University of Southern California professor who spent years embedded with MS-13 researching the gang, and is the author of an ethnography that studies MS-13, said in an email.
“Those tattoos do not prove that he’s a member of MS-13,” said Susan Phillips, a Pitzer College professor who has studied gangs and written a book on gang graffiti.
While some gangs will opt for more low-profile or ambiguous means of identifying members to evade detection from law enforcement or rival gang members, MS-13 tattoos, according to Leap, aren’t exactly subtle. They are used to market the gang’s brutality.
“MS-13 members have tattoos that say ‘MS-13,’” Leap said. “They’re not head-scratchers; they’re billboards. There’s no ambiguity.”
For some members, especially children or teenagers that fall into gang life, the tattoos are used almost as brands to symbolize the gang’s ownership over the person with the ink, she added.
“The leadership wanted to be known as this brutal, lethal, take-no-prisoners gang,” she said. “So, the use of tattoos is part of that overall culture of defiance, while other gangs will say, ‘Let’s go more low profile.’”
During a 2019 arrest, Abrego Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with the motif “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil,” which the administration said was also indicative of his membership in a gang. Leap said the Bulls hat can carry some gang connotations, but she added: “I can’t emphasize this enough – it is not definitive.”
Phillips, the Pitzer College professor, said other contextual information needs to be considered before the tattoos could imply association with or membership of a gang. The fact that Abrego Garcia was a father, actively worked as a day laborer and had no criminal convictions in the United States are all factors that “lead me to believe that this is not an active gang member by any stretch of the imagination.”
Tattoos, Phillips said, are “really a public symbol for other gang members to see.”
“And so, it’s important that it’s visible and public, and that you can tell at a glance who is what — who might be an enemy, who might be an ally,” she said. “That’s why tattoos are so public. It’s for the purposes of identification within a very dangerous world.”
Ward, the USC professor, agreed: “MS gang members are proud of their membership in the gang and don’t want/need to hide it behind some cryptic message,” he wrote.
“I think the key thing is that you cannot judge this,” Phillips said. “We cannot be judging this. This should be judged in the court of law here in the United States.”
“In this case, the image of Trump with the pictures is more powerful than the meaning of the tattoos itself,” the professor added.
This story was updated to include comment from Abrego Garcia’s lawyer.
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