The Department of Homeland Security is furious that former inmate Kilmar Abrego Garcia is no longer in its custody and is free to post messages on social media.
Department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin reposted an X-rated post from MAGA YouTuber Benny Johnson in which he shared a video posted by Abrego Garcia on TikTok on Saturday, writing: “So we at @DHSgov are being silenced by an activist judge and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is making TikToks. American justice stops working when its arbiters silence law enforcement and give megaphones to those who oppose our legal system.”
In the video, which was posted to TikTok on Friday, Abrego Garcia can be seen lip-syncing to Danny Berrios’ “Himno de Victoria.” In a second video posted on the platform, Abrego Garcia records the sky and the trees before turning the camera towards himself and singing “Sumérgeme” by Jesús Adrián Romero.
Employees of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are prohibited from making comments that could harm the public or violate Abrego Garcia’s right to a fair trial.
Earlier this month, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers accused Border Patrol Officer Greg Bovino of repeated violations of the silence order, citing comments made on national television in which he called Abrego Garcia a “foreign smuggler” and a “wife beater” and then asked the court to impose sanctions.
Under the auspices of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, including Noem herself, have worked overtime to defame Abrego Garcia, repeatedly describing him as a “monster,” a human trafficker, a domestic abuser, a child predator, and a member of the MS-13 gang.
Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland for years with his American wife and child, has not been convicted of any crimes and denies any involvement in MS-13.
Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, has become one of the highest-profile targets of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation strategy.
After a judge ordered the 30-year-old returned to the United States, the Trump administration immediately began working to deport him again, considering countries like Uganda and Liberia, countries to which he has no ties, and charging him with human trafficking in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia was released Dec. 11 after a federal judge determined the government had no viable plan to deport him.
Abrego Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica, and the Costa Rican government agreed to accept him on humanitarian grounds, but the Trump administration insisted that Costa Rica was unwilling to accept him despite evidence to the contrary.
On Tuesday, a federal judge threw out Abrego Garcia’s trial in Tennessee and scheduled a hearing in late January to examine whether prosecutors acted vindictively and selectively targeted him.
