Maryland senator returns to US after meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador

Maryland Sen Chris Van Hollen flew home from El Salvador on Friday after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was wrongly deported there by the Trump administration It s unclear what will happen next in the occurrence More Democrats have mentioned they will fly to El Salvador to push for his release but the partisan pressure hasn t yielded any results President Donald Trump and El Salvador s President Nayib Bukele have dug in on keeping Abrego Garcia out of the United States even as authorities in Trump s Republican administration have called his deportation a mistake and the U S Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return Bukele posted images of Van Hollen s meeting with Abrego Garcia on Thursday and explained that the prisoner in the country s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center or CECOT gets the honor of staying in El Salvador s custody White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has announced he will never live in the United States of America again The fight over Abrego Garcia is the latest partisan flashpoint as Democrats have struggled to break through and push back during the opening scant months of Trump s second time in office Democrats say the fight isn t just about one man s immigration status but about Trump s defiance of the courts that have repeatedly weighed in on the scenario A federal appeals court commented Thursday in a blistering order that the Trump administration s claim that it can t do anything to free Abrego Garcia from the prison in El Salvador and return him to the United States should be shocking Republicans aren t budging But Republicans appear to have only become more determined to keep Abrego Garcia out of the country They have sharply criticized Van Hollen s trip and claimed that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS- gang His attorneys say the executive has provided no evidence of gang involvement and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity Democrats have time and again prioritized politics over the safety and shield of Americans Republican Sen John Cornyn of Texas explained in a comment Friday It is utterly divorced from reality Van Hollen who will talk to reporters after landing in the Washington area later Friday has commented he won t stop fighting for the release of Abrego Garcia a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland This is about bringing home a man they ADMIT should ve never been abducted Van Hollen posted on X The Democratic senator posted a photo of his meeting with Abrego Garcia on Thursday evening but did not provide an update on his status He stated he had called Abrego Garcia s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura to pass on a message of love and would provide a full update upon his return It s unclear how the meeting was arranged where they met or what will happen to Abrego Garcia Vasquez Sura declared in a declaration issued by an advocacy group that we still have so a multitude of questions hopes and fears After days of denying that he knew much about Abrego Garcia Trump on Friday explained he knew Abrego Garcia was unbelievably bad and called him an illegal alien and a foreign terrorist The president also responded Friday with a social media post saying Van Hollen looked like a fool the previous evening standing in El Salvador begging for attention Lots of Congress members are visiting the prison or trying Several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in help of the Trump administration s efforts Rep Riley Moore a West Virginia Republican posted Tuesday evening that he d visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held I leave now even more determined to sponsorship President Trump s efforts to secure our homeland Moore wrote on social media U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement representatives acknowledged in a court filing earlier this month that Abrego Garcia s deportation was an administrative error The establishment s acknowledgment sparked immediate uproar from immigration advocates but White House bureaucrats have dug in on the allegation that he s a gang member The fight has also played out in contentious court filings with repeated refusals from the ruling body to tell a judge what it plans to do if anything to repatriate him The three-judge panel from the th U S Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused Thursday to suspend the judge s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration representatives and disclosed the judiciary will be hurt by the constant intimations of its illegitimacy while the executive branch will lose much from a masses perception of its lawlessness Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III nominated by President Ronald Reagan a Republican wrote that he and his two colleagues cling to the hope that it is not na ve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos Since March El Salvador has accepted from the U S more than Venezuelan immigrants whom Trump administration representatives have accused of gang activity and violent crimes and placed them inside the country s maximum-security gang prison just outside San Salvador Trump administration hours ago The Abrego Garcia incident pulls Democrats into the immigration debate Trump wants to have Trump administration hours ago Sen Van Hollen meets with wrongly deported Abrego Garcia