 "‘He’s not coming back': White House 'fixes' NYT headline on wrongly deported man. Image: X")
The White House on Friday criticised both The New York Times and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen over a headline about a deported migrant from Maryland. The news story was about the senator meeting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador.
In a post on X, the official White House account shared a screenshot of the New York Times article titled “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador.” But in the version posted by the White House, the words “wrongly” and “Maryland man” were crossed out in red and replaced with “MS-13 illegal alien,” along with the added phrase “who’s never coming back.”
At the centre of this political controversy is 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia—an undocumented migrant the White House says is a known member of the violent MS-13 gang. He had been living with his family in Maryland before being deported in March as part of a wider crackdown on migrants with alleged gang ties.
Supreme Court calls deportation a mistake
However, the US Supreme Court later ruled that Garcia’s deportation was a mistake, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying there was no legal basis for his arrest or removal. Despite this, the Trump administration has refused to allow him back into the country.