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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traveled to El Salvador this week to get answers about the status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man Donald Trump’s administration illegally sent to a mega-prison in the Central American nation and is now refusing to bring back to the U.S. despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return.
Van Hollen was able to meet with Abrego Garcia on Thursday. “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” he wrote on X, attaching a photo of himself sitting with Abrego Garcia. “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.”
Trump and his administration, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and MAGA commentators online have been mocking Van Hollen for checking on Abrego Garcia’s welfare.
“Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone,” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social. “GRANDSTANDER!!!”
The White House piled on later Friday morning, posting a screenshot of a New York Times headline that read: “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador” — but crossing out “Wrongly,” replacing “Marylan Man” with “MS-13 Illegal Alien,” and tacking on “Who’s Never Coming Back.”
Abrego Garcia was undocumented when he came to the United States at the age of 16. He fled gang violence and threats, which is why a federal judge imposed a “protection from removal” order that prohibits the U.S. from deporting him to El Salvador. The Trump administration even admitted in a court filing that it was wrong to deport him, chalking it up to an “administrative error.” There is no credible evidence that he is an MS-13 member, or that he is a dangerous “criminal,” as officials have repeatedly alleged.
It’s unclear whether he will be brought back to the United States. The Supreme Court last week ruled 9-0 that the administration must “facilitate” his return, but Trump and his top administration figures have falsely claimed the court actually ruled in its favor, and that it only needs to return Abrego Garcia if El Salvador first decides to release him. The U.S. is paying El Salvador millions of dollars to detain him as well as several hundred Venezuelan migrants.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the administration’s request to avoid complying with the court’s demand on Thursday, calling the administration’s arguments in Abrego Garcia’s case “shocking” and “lawless.”
Bukele has insisted he will not give up Abrego Garcia, first while meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, and again while mocking Van Hollen for meeting with Abrego Garcia. “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” the Salvadoran president wrote on X, replying to his own post that read: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”
The Times reported that a Bukele aide placed two glasses with cherries and sugared rims on the table to make it seem like Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia were enjoying tropical drinks. Bukele is mocking that people have described CECOT, the mega-prison to which Abrego Garcia was sent, as a torturous death camp, but it certainly fits the bill.
Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a leading human rights organization that has represented victims and the families of those internally displaced and disappeared in Central America for more than 20 years, described the nation’s prison system to Rolling Stone as a “judicial black hole” where inmates are “subjected to systematic torture,” and where “hundreds — probably more like thousands — have been killed.”
Bukele has also reposted a torrent of right-wing commentators making fun of Van Hollen and praising Bukele for “trolling” the media. “I love chess,” Bukele wrote at one point, apparently of the belief that dressing up Abrego Garcia in a collared shirt and Kansas City Chief Super Bowl hat and planting drinks on the table where he met Van Hollen marked some sort of checkmate against Americans who have been crying foul over the Trump administration’s illegal handling of the situation.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Bukele is planning on doubling the size of the maximum-security facility where El Salvador is holding U.S. deportees. Trump, meanwhile, has openly mused about sending “homegrown” American citizens to the nation — which would be blatantly illegal —and, as Rolling Stone recently reported, his administration has been working behind the scenes on plans to make it happen.
