Karoline Leavitt slaps back at Trump critics with special guest (2025)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slapped back at critics of President Donald Trump's deportation policy by bringing a 'special guest' to her briefing on Wednesday.

The administration added the event to its schedule after Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen landed in El Salvador to try to visitKilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man and father of three who who was mistakenly deported along with dozens of other migrants on March 15.

Leavitt slammed Van Hollen's trip as 'appalling and sad.' She repeated the administration's claim that Garcia is a gang member.

'Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen rushed to Dulles Airport this morning to fly to El Salvador, potentially using taxpayer dollars to demand the release of deported illegal alien, MS 13 terrorist,' she said.

'The Democrats and the media in this room have continually and wrongly labeled Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia as a Maryland father. There is no Maryland father.'

Leavitt then introducedPatty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was brutally raped and murdered while hiking a popular trail.Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a fugitive from El Salvador, was convicted of the crime.

Morin blasted Van Hollen for his trip, saying the 'senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge — or barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother' chose to 'use my tax money to fly to El Salvador to bring back a person who isn't even an American citizen.'

Van Hollen put out a statement after Martinez-Hernandez's conviction.

'While the conviction of Rachel Morin's killer will not return Rachel to her family where she rightfully belongs, this verdict brings a measure of justice that they so deserve,' he said.

'The American people deserve meaningful action to reform our broken immigration system, improve public safety, and strengthen our border security. We can do this while also supporting our immigrant communities and respecting the rights of individuals who are here legally,' he added.

Patty Morin said it was people like her daughter's killers that President Donald Trump wants removed from the country.

'These are the kind of criminals President Trump wants to remove from our country,' she said. 'These are the kind of criminals that we need to remove from our country. We are American citizens. Why should we allow people like this, violent criminals that have no conscience at all to murder our mothers, our sisters, our daughters? I don't understand.'

It's unclear what Morin's case and Garcia's case have in common.

And the White House didn't allow any questions at the event they called a 'press briefing.'

Leavitt asked reporters if they had any questions for her or Morin but then declined to call on any journalist, several of whom had their hands raised and one who vocally called out that she had a question.

Instead, she ended the event.

Patty Morin also met with President Trump in the Oval Office, according to video the White House posted on social media.

'Your daughter is looking down proud of you, you know that,' the president told her and urged her to 'keep going.'

Meanwhile, Garcia has denied being a member of the MS-13 gang. He has no criminal record in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security said it has court records alleging that he abused his wife.

His case is being fought in the courts.

Garcia and the others were deported under the Alien Enemies Act, which some Trump critics have argued is illegal because that law can only be used when the country is at war.

The U.S. deported about 240 Venezuelans and a handful of Salvadorans, who were members of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.

Trump designated that gang and MS-13 as 'foreign terrorists organizations,' which the administrations argues meets the 'at war' requirement.

However, US District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that 'probable cause exists' to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The administration is appealing his ruling.

Boasberg had also ordered all planes bound for El Salvador to be 'immediately' returned to U.S. soil — which did not happen.

Van Hollen, while in El Salvador, met withVice President Félix Ulloa, who declined to let the senator visit Garcia atCECOT, orCenter for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism, in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.

The prison is heavily overcrowded and faces allegations of human rights abuse.

'Why is the government of El Salvador continuing to imprison a man where they have no evidence that he's committed any crime and they have not been provided any evidence from the United States that he has committed any crime?' Van Hollen told reporters after the meeting. 'They should just let him go.'

'We have an unjust situation here,' Van Hollen said. 'The Trump administration is lying about Abrego Garcia. The American courts have looked at the facts.'

Other Democrats are considering a trip to El Salvador.

Garcia's deportation has been acknowledged by Justice Department Officials as a mistake.

On March 12, Garcia was pulled over outside of an IKEA in Baltimore with his son, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

Garcia called his wife from jail and said authorities had been questioning him on MS-13 and queried his family's visits to a restaurant serving Mexican and Salvadoran food.

He is a Salvadoran citizen who has lived in Maryland for almost 15 years. While he initially entered the U.S. illegally, a federal judge in 2019 granted him protection from being deported, due to concerns for his safety if he were to return to El Salvador.

The Trump administration has held firm about Garcia's deportation, insisting it was legal and he was a criminal.