Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Thursday evening in El Salvador, coming face to face with the wrongly deported man after two days in the country pushing for his release.
The Democratic senator posted a photo of the meeting on X but did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.
A Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. U.S. President Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to return him to the United States, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.
“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” Van Hollen wrote on X, with a photo of the two men talking in what appeared to be a restaurant. “Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”
It’s not clear how the meeting was arranged, where they met or what will happen to Abrego Garcia. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.” The tweet ended with emojis of the U.S. and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.
Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said in a statement released by an advocacy group that “we still have so many questions, hopes, and fears.”
Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have seized on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. A federal appeals court said Thursday in a blistering order that the Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. “ should be shocking. "...
We share those fears, given the cruel and reckless fascist regimes involved. If the convicted felon Malignant Fascist's regime continues to brazenly defy court orders in a case involving an "administrative error" and the Constitutional right to due process, you can be absolutely certain more such extra-legal actions will follow -- with immigrants, protesters, higher education, the media, etc. In fact, those extra-legal actions are almost guaranteed to continue regardless of the disposition of the Abrego Garcia case.
The lawlessness of this regime is metastasizing rapidly.
BONUS: Read yesterday's 7-page order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit absolutely blistering the Malignant Fascist's actions, written by Reagan appointee J. Harvie Wilkinson (pdf).
(Photo: Sen. Van Hollen press office, via AP)
😊 As always, thank you for providing important basics; in this case, Judge Wilkinson's order. I love to absorb such info. I love Wilkinson's reference to Presidential history of respect among branches. And I love the grammar lesson..."'facilitate' is an active verb..." 🤭
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the judge referring to what was done to Abrego Garcia as a "deportation." I don't know if any garden-variety deportations (you know, due process ones) are still happening during this Trump regime, but not one of them I see in the news meets the definition. These are kidnappings, snatchings, disappearances, and not in any way covered by color of law.
I am thankful to know I was wrong in believing Trump was fighting so hard because Abrego Garcia was already dead. I am happy for him and his family that he has been seen and appears to be healthy. I am sure that Sen. Van Hollen has let Abrego Garcia know he is cared about by millions of people and that this will give him strength as he is returned to the CECOT dungeon.
I am sickened by the flippancy of President Bukele and his need to make nasty bruh-type statements about the meeting he let Abrego Garcia attend. Instead of taking a victory lap as a benevolent "cool" dictator, Bukele let his gangsta frat-bruh personality come forward as a message to Trump's personality, no doubt, and to not overshadow the "leadership" of Trump. Before X-ing the nasty crack about the honor of staying in custody, Bukule had already X-ed:
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture”, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador."
Ugh, what a 🍆!! Even the clothing they put Abrego Garcia in was a dick move by unserious people. Was it just the only casual clothing they could find, or was it meant to look like "gang" clothing, including a sports cap? But jeebus, bruhs, you think a Chiefs Super Bowl cap is the same gang-affiliation vibe as the "sinister" Chicago Bulls cap the Trump regime claimed "proved" his MS-13 membership?!
Ruh-roh! 'Scuse me while I clean out my closet because this 70 year-old gal has been a Chiefs fan since Lamar Hunt moved the Texans to KC in the mid 1960s and my fanwear is gonna get me disappeared! These idiots are incompetent even in their bruh-ness!! 🤪🤬
Cleora -- hopefully, one day the people of El Salvador will see to it that Bukele enjoys the hospitality of one of those prisons (maybe we can arrange to have our own dictator join him, too!). Pipe dreams.
ReplyDelete