Jorja Leap, adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, commented in a CNN story about Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was deported to an prison in El Salvador on the basis of tattoos purportedly linked to affiliation with the transnational criminal organization known as MS-13. Leap was among gang experts who disagreed with the government’s position that the tattoos — publicized on social media — alone constituted proof of membership.

“I see a bunch of symbols that could be interpreted any number of ways,” said Leap, who has previously served as an expert gang witness in court proceedings. “There is nothing in those tattoos that is definitively gang representative,” she said of the markings, which are also the subject of contention over whether they have been digitally altered to suggest gang affiliation. Leap also was quoted in New York Times coverage of the story.