After weeks of the Trump administration refusing court orders to facilitate the return of the wrongly deported, Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an infamous prison in El Salvador, many began to speculate that Garcia might’ve actually lost his life. Even Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele refused requests to let the man return home to his family.
Now, we finally have proof of life as Democratic Senator, Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland traveled to El Salvador to visit Garcia at the CECOT prison. After initially receiving the runaround the first day he arrived, prison officials finally let Van Hollen sit face-to-face with his Maryland constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
According to Newsweek, Van Hollen was finally able to meet with Garcia at the prison known for housing thousands of MS-13 and MS-18 gang members, and in the process, laid to rest any notion that Garcia had somehow lost his life in the process of being deported and wrongfully incarcerated at CECOT. Though Salvadorian officials are still denying any requests to let Garcia return to America (as the U.S. Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to make happen), Van Hollen was at least able to confirm that Garcia is alive and well at the current moment. Unfortunately for Garcia, the Trump administration is fighting tooth and nail to keep Garcia in El Salvador regardless of the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling. And they don’t seem to be backing down anytime soon, if ever.
Per Newsweek:
In an order on Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s plea for an emergency stay in Abrego Garcia’s case requesting that the White House should no longer be required to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, an appointee of GOP icon former President Ronald Reagan, ripped the administration in the order, saying in part, “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.”
“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that
Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” Wilkinson wrote.
With the Trump administration paying Bukele $6 million a year to house hundreds of deported immigrants and asking Bukele to build five more prisons for future deportations of migrants AND American citizens who Trump deems as “criminals,” this saga is only getting started. Politicians, Americans, and Garcia’s family are demanding that the defiant Trump administration follow court orders and bring Garcia back home. They won’t.
Knowing that the public perception behind this deportation of Garcia is a horrible look for Trump’s agenda, his spokespeople and administrative officials continue to lie and label Garcia a “terrorist” and member of MS-13 even though neither the U.S. nor El Salvador can provide any evidence of such allegations in a court of law. While most people see right through the lies, MAGA supporters on social media continue to push the false narrative to justify Garcia’s detention at CECOT to further muddy the waters and paint Garcia as a “bad hombre.”
American fascism in 2025.
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