Appearing on the May 17, The Weekend: Primetime, MSNBC contributor Maria Hinojosa predicted that deported illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia -- who is alleged to be both a wife beater and MS-13 gang member -- will end up being seen as a "national hero" as liberals fight to bring him back to the U.S.
MSNBC's The Weekend: Primetime
May 17, 2025
7:43 p.m. Eastern
MARIA HINOJOSA MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And I think what we have to understand is that all of us in the United States of America -- we have just witnessed how this father of three from El Salvador has now been painted before our very eyes as some kind of international terrorist where state secrets are now involved and national security is now involved. And the truth is, is that the administration has not proven anything. It's not giving any facts about this. And so, like the judge, we're just having to trust that the government is telling the truth.
ANTONIA HYLTON, CO-HOST: Maria, you kind of -- you talked about the image that's being painted of Kilmar over these last several weeks -- what did you make earlier this week of Secretary Kristi Noem in a hearing really struggling to answer direct questions about that photoshopped image that the President has held up of the fake MS-13 tattoos that, you know, at one point he believed were on Kilmar's hand we now know are fake? And she was really struggling to just directly acknowledge that that was a falsified image. Do you see that as part of the kind of storytelling this administration is trying to do around people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia?
HINOJOSA: Yeah. and, you know, the problem is that people are hearing these messages, right, that these people like Kilmar are the "worst of the worst" -- the most scariest people who have to be taken either to CECOT in El Salvador or in Guantanamo. And what we know is that the government has yet to prove whether or not the majority of these people have any criminal records. I need to tell you I was just in an immigrant detention facility -- we're going to drop an exclusive report next week. And the majority of the people who are in this detention facility in Colorado are -- have broken no laws except for being here in the United States without documents. Interestingly, the entire world knows the name Kilmar Abrego Garcia. At some point, he will come out either a national or an international hero, and Donald Trump will continue to be the President who defied the Supreme Court and led us to a constitutional crisis in this country.
. Ben Graham
