(The Center Square) – In a last-minute press briefing Wednesday afternoon, the mother of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old Marylander who was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member, addressed reporters at the White House.
The White House announced it was hosting a “special guest” to speak just two hours before the briefing. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Patty Morin had requested to share her daughter’s story with the media. Rachel’s attacker was convicted of killing her by bashing her head against rocks and later strangling her.
Morin described the gruesome details of her daughter’s rape and murder.
“There’s a six-inch square on the back of her head where her skull is shattered the way that you would crush an eggshell,” Morin said. “There wasn’t one inch of her body that didn’t have some kind of injury.
“This means nothing to them,” Morin said, referring to members of the notorious international crime gang. Of her daughter’s killer, she said he didn’t appear concerned about the potential consequences of the crimes in court.
“When he was sitting in the courtroom, he actually looked like he thought he was going to be set free,” she added.
Morin addressed reporters in light of the blowback the administration has faced after its accidental deportation of Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia with a group of purported illegal alien criminals in March. Garcia came to the U.S. illegally as a teenager around 2011, and was granted asylum by an immigration judge in 2019, despite suspicions and earlier court documents referring to him as a member of MS-13. He lived in Maryland from his arrival in the states until his deportation and has a wife and child that are American citizens.
Despite a federal judge ruling the administration was to return Garcia – and a partial upholding of those orders from the Supreme Court telling the Trump administration to “facilitate” Garcia’s return – the administration has not agreed to bring Garcia back to the U.S. It insists it has complied with the Supreme Court’s orders, saying they don’t require the administration to “effectuate” his return. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during his visit to the White House Monday that he also would not send Garcia back to the U.S.
Leavitt emphatically affirmed Wednesday afternoon what the White House has repeatedly said: It will not be returning Garcia to the U.S.
“The Democrats and the media in this room have continually and wrongly labeled Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a Maryland father. There is no Maryland father,” Leavitt said. “Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again.”
Leavitt disclosed for the first time that Garcia’s wife had petitioned the courts for a protection order against her husband in May 2021.
The Trump administration has seen heightened scrutiny over the issue for what some see as defying multiple court orders and deporting someone who was living in the U.S. legally and whose lawyers say has never been charged with any crimes.
