Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland secured a gathering with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador on Thursday, fulfilling the promise he made to the Maryland man’s household after he was kidnapped by the Trump administration.
“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” Van Hollen wrote. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.”
The breakthrough occurred days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele claimed that nothing may very well be completed after Abrego Garcia was wrongly despatched to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT jail.
“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele claimed within the Oval Workplace assembly, seated beside Trump.
Abrego Garcia’s return has been ordered by U.S. courts, together with the conservative-dominated Supreme Courtroom, which discovered he was wrongly deported and denied due course of.
Requested on Thursday concerning the scenario his administration created, Trump stated, “I’m not involved in it. I’m going to respond to that by saying you’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I’ve heard many things about him. We’ll have to find out what the truth is.”
However the insinuation of Abrego Garcia’s wrongdoing is a lie. The Maryland father of two was focused due to Trump’s anti-immigrant zealotry, and his unlawful deportation occurred as a result of Trump’s departments of Justice and State have chosen to brush up individuals on specious grounds.
In the meantime, the Bukele regime tried to make use of the assembly between Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia to forged doubt on experiences from worldwide human rights organizations concerning the inhumane situations in El Salvador’s jail system.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele wrote.
However The New York Instances reported that an aide to Bukele positioned margarita glasses on the desk earlier than the lads with a purpose to stage the photograph. Professional-Trump right-wing media rapidly regurgitated the Salvadoran autocrat’s propaganda. The New York Publish—which is owned by Fox Information proprietor Rupert Murdoch—revealed the pictures below the headline “Alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia seen ‘sipping margaritas’ with Sen. Van Hollen.”
The assembly additionally served to debunk most of the narratives supplied up by the Trump administration in protection of their actions in opposition to Abrego Garcia. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi has claimed—with out proof—that the Maryland father is a “top” member of the MS-13 gang and a “terrorist.” However apparently, he isn’t so harmful that El Salvador would permit him to satisfy with a U.S. senator with out restraints.
In the end, the journey was successful for Van Hollen and different Democrats who have been pushing for Abrego Garcia’s launch and the restoration of due course of. Van Hollen did what Trump refuses to do: assist not less than one American household.
