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.”
They couldn’t use AI to doctor the image because everyone would instantly see the 7 fingers and laugh.
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
It’s more like Microsoft Paint…it doesn’t even look slightly real. That’s if it even is his hand.
It’s his hand. You can find other angles of it in the same article. It and it seems that the ms-13 edited o to his digits is meant to be a translation of the symbology of his tattoos:
marijuana = M
Smiley face = S
Cross = 1
Skull = 3
Is that an accurate representation of what his tattoos mean? I have no idea, I’m not an expert on gang symbology.
What I am sure of, is that trump presented this information in such a vague manner so as to muddy the water so he can come back later and claim his claims were misrepresented by the “lying, dishonest media” - which is itself dishonest.
It’s an inkblot test. His detractors will take the claim at face value, and his supporters will dig in and claim we’re stupid for not immediately taking his claims as gospel.
As it is just a photo of a hand, it could be anyones hand.
Anyone’s hand, presented by the man whose first column in the “customs tariff table” was a ridiculous lie made up of cooked numbers (trade deficit instead of tariff rate).
There’s no reason to put a grain of trust in him.
You need a hand? Heck, I’ll get you a hand by lunch.
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.
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.
This is what they always do, get you arguing about something that doesn’t matter. Just eats up time and energy about nothing.
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.
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.
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.
Here’s a closeup of the image
A Nigerian prince puts more effort into fooling people.
There are five possibilities:
- Trump was given this as proof that the guy is really a gang member, didn’t ask if it was fake, presented it without vetting it
- Trump ordered someone to find proof that he’s in a gang and someone gave it to him as proof
- Trump ordered someone to create proof that he’s in a gang
- Trump was given this as proof, he asked if it was fake, and was told the truth, and presented it anyway
- Trump was given this as proof, asked if it was fake, was lied to, and presented it
All of these have problems.
Its sad that those are all legitimate possibilities
Somehow this seems like lower effort than a sharpie.
Wait, the letters are clearly digitally added on top of the photo, but aren’t they just used to label the tattoos on each finger?
Not that would change anything…
If they wanted to indicate a translation for the symbols, they could have done so off of the part of the image consisting of the hand. Trump said verbatim “he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles”. Not symbols for MS-13, the phrase itself. Additionally, the real tattoos are clearly not on the knuckles, but the photoshopped letters are. Trump believes the photoshopped letters are actual tattoos and/or wants to convince people of it.
He should have used a sharpie. It would be more convincing than the pixelated font that doesn’t align wit the hand at all.
I have to think someone overlaid text on the photo to persuade people that the pictures on the fingers represented MS13, but Trump got the wrong end of the stick, made an idiot of himself in front of the media, and no one dared tell him he was a fucking moron.
This is 100% it. Still unacceptable to sit in the oval office and deny a man his rights like this, but if they wanted to doctor the images they have access to FAR more effective ways to generate a convincing photo… Trump is just a senile dumbfuck who didn’t understand what he was looking at.
Can you elaborate?
like (M)arijuana (S)miley …. then i suppose devils advocate could say cross is like a 1 and skull is a 3? though skull is more like an 8? but also totally not either so…
edit: after writing this I kept scrolling and others have posted similar things way before i did. So maybe that is the “official” line they’re going with.
edit2: guys, we’ve had it all wrong…
(W)eed, (D)ead, 4 (jezuz died 4 our zins) 0 (as in nothing, like no more, like… a skull.)
Based detective skills.
That doesn’t even qualify as a Photoshop. It should be called an “MS Paint”
“MS Paint? That sounds an awful lot like MS-13! Off to the El Salvador gulag with you, terrorist scum!”
Microsoft made Internet Explorer: MSIE. Turn the E around and it’s clearly a gang code. Can we send Microsoft to a gulag now? Windows 11 is also a crime against humanity.
Omfg I literally had to double check this was really what trump was holding up. “internet sleuth” my ass, a ten year old could point out how stupidly fake this is.
That was my first reaction, but apparently the letters were placed there to explain the tattoos “meaning”.
Supposedly:
Marijuana stands for M Smiley face stands for S Cross stands for 1 for some reason Skull stands for 3 for some reason
They forgot that:
- wouldn’t the text be in Spanish and not English?
- MS 13 hand members are proud of being in it, they put giant letters on their chests, backs, face, if he wanted to hide it, why even bother having a tattoos? Wouldn’t other gang members get upset that he is hiding it?
I also couldn’t find pictures of anyone else from MS13 who was using such cryptic tattoos.
Also with the interpretation is that you can literally assign any meaning to it for example:
- Pot
- Ecstatic
- “t”
- Afterlife
This shows that Abrego Garcia is actually an animal lover and supports PETA.
But this is beside the point. The problem is he had no due process, and wasn’t deported but human trafficked to a prison in 3rd world country.
If they have undeniable proof give it to the court and then either deport him or put him in US jail if he committed a crime.
Elon should have picked his gooner squad for their skills instead of their sycophantcy.
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.
There are literally annotations under the symbols.
Marijuana, Smile, Cross
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.
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?
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.
“Knuckle tattoo” is the common term for tattoos on the back of the fingers like that.
You don’t think Marijuana is an English word, do you?
Smile is sonrisa in Spanish, also…
The skull is still a puzzler though.
So, in Spanish you get MSCC? Still makes no sense as an acronym.
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.
It starts off plausible:
M=Marijuana
S=SmileyBut then it gets stupid:
1=Cross?
3=Skull???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.
Yeah, the story should have been, “Trump comes up with another distraction to avoid admitting he’s violating the Constitution,” or at least, “Trump too stupid to understand a picture and says stupid thing.”
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
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?
1 isn’t really a cross, but I guess if you really stretch it?
But the skull also has a mouth. That’s 4.
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.
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.
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.
Removed by mod
It’s sharpie gate all over again!
Also, weren’t they already claiming he was part of some Venezuelan gang? MS-13 is an American gang of jailed Latinos.
It’s the default font. They didn’t even bother to select an appropriate “gang” font.
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.
A TATTOO?! GUILTY! FEED HIM TO THE LIONS!
These people are so fucking stupid. Footage from the Van Hollan meeting will come out soon and show this is clearly not a thing.
Never mind the top, what’s up with the words underneath? No one would have their tattoo pics labeled for clarity like that.
Actually these supposed to explain his tattoos, but the whole thing is still flimsy, see: https://lemm.ee/comment/19828278
