The Trump administration just became so much more Orwellian.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,” George Orwell wrote in his cautionary tale about totalitarianism, 1984.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took that command a step further, refusing to even acknowledge a doctored photo depicting alleged gang tattoos on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s knuckles, which the White House has repeatedly used to justify his deportation.
In a heated back-and-forth with Representative Eric Swalwell during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Noem repeatedly swerved away from answering direct questions about the photo, which was displayed on a massive poster board behind the California lawmaker.
Asked several times whether the photo was “doctored or not doctored,” Noem eventually said that she did not “have any knowledge of that photo you’re pointing to.”
But because she apparently refused to look at the image—which, in Swalwell’s photo, was held up by President Donald Trump—Swalwell decided to have one of his aides bring the image to her.
“My question is—the numbers and the letters: MS-13—can you look at the photo, please,” Swalwell said.
“Are you saying Abrego Garcia is not a wife beater? Is not a criminal? Is not a human trafficker?” asked Noem.
“It’s so telling that you won’t look at the photo,” said Swalwell. “Can you look to the right at the photo in front of you?”
“I have seen this photo as you held it behind you,” said Noem.
“The letters M-S and the numbers 13, are those doctored or not?” pressed Swalwell.
“You don’t want to talk about the facts? The importance of our national security?” tossed back Noem.
“Madame Secretary, this is not a hard question. Are those doctored or not? Is that actually on his hand or not?” Swalwell said.
Noem then said it was “unbelievable” to her that Swalwell was so focused on the photo, reiterating that she “did not have any knowledge” of it.
“OK, so it’s been hanging out there for four weeks,” Swalwell said, referring to Trump’s Truth Social page. “You are one of the chief law enforcement officials in the country. What have you done to investigate whether the president misrepresented the reason that this person has been detained? Have you done anything to try and figure out whether that was doctored or not?”
But Noem did not have an answer for that question. Instead, she repeated accusations that Abrego Garcia—who the Trump administration admitted had been deported as an “administrative error”—was a wife beater and a criminal.
“I’m a former prosecutor. I have put people away for life sentences who are gang members. I don’t need to wear costumes to show how tough I am,” Swalwell said, before yielding back his time. “What makes me different from you is when I put those people away, I did it with the weight of the law behind me.”
This is absolutely incredible — Kristi Noem repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that Trump brandished an doctored image of Abrego Garcia’s tattoos, prompting Eric Swalwell to have a staffer of his brandish an image of them right in her face.Totally dystopian. pic.twitter.com/PDJQ9AOBF9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2025
Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago, but he was allowed to remain in the U.S. and evade deportation back to El Salvador when an immigration judge ruled in October 2019 that a return to his home country could expose him to violence or persecution from a local gang, Barrio 18. Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, and the only alleged tie between the construction worker and MS-13 stemmed from a 2019 report by a since-fired Maryland police officer. The report also did not definitively link Abrego Garcia to the gang.
The Supreme Court ordered the executive branch to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., but the White House has since contested that ruling, arguing that Abrego Garcia “will never live” in America again.
Trump himself appears confused about Abrego Garcia’s connection to Latin American gangs. The president entered into a terse exchange with ABC News in late April when he insisted that the doctored photo of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles was real.
Experts say the photo was obviously photoshopped.
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