Department of Homeland Security officials criticized Kilmar Abrego Garcia after a TikTok video of him lip-syncing to the Spanish Christian song “Himno de Victoria” spread online.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin criticized Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s viral TikTok posts while the agency remains restricted from public comment under a court order.
“So we, at @DHSgov, are under gag order by an activist judge and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is making TikToks.
American justice ceases to function when its arbiters silence law enforcement and give megaphones to those who oppose our legal system,” McLaughlin wrote, according to Tricia McLaughlin on X.
A federal judge previously directed DHS and Justice Department employees to refrain from making “prejudicial” public statements about Abrego Garcia’s criminal case, after defense lawyers argued repeated public claims could undermine his right to a fair trial, according to ABC News.
On Dec. 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. canceled Abrego Garcia’s scheduled human-smuggling trial in Tennessee and set a Jan. 28, 2026 hearing to examine whether the government is pursuing the case vindictively, according to The Associated Press.
Since Abrego Garcia was sent back to El Salvador in March 2024, even though a 2019 order said he couldn’t be sent there, his story has gotten a lot of national attention.. The U.S. Supreme Court later ordered the government to facilitate his return, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. After he returned to the U.S. in 2025, he was detained and charged in connection with a 2022 traffic stop.
