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Jeffrey Bernstein Ph.d
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This senator met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. He tells us what he saw.
Since being deported to El Salvador last month, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has had very little contact with the outside world — something that Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen tried to change.
Last week, Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant who the Trump administration has admitted was deported from Maryland in error. But the White House has since doubled down on claims that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, with Stephen Miller, a top Trump domestic policy adviser, saying, “This was the right person sent to the right place.”
Van Hollen was initially denied access to Abrego Garcia. But officials in El Salvador eventually relented, and arranged a meeting at the senator’s hotel. Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen about his experience at El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a massive prison, and his traumatic isolation from the outside world.
Abrego Garcia’s detention has pushed the United States to the brink of a constitutional showdown. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the US — an order that the White House has shown little intention of heeding.
“This goes to the heart of protecting people’s rights and what bullies do and what authoritarian leaders do,” Van Hollen told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram. “And what Donald Trump is doing is beginning by picking on the most vulnerable and refusing to bring his case in the courts, and when the courts rule, ignoring them.”
Van Hollen talked to Today, Explained about what he heard from Abrego Garcia, and why he believes this case has pushed the United States into a constitutional crisis. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Make sure to listen to the whole thing.
Why was it so important to you to go down to El Salvador to meet with this one man?
I wanted to let him know, number one, that I was bringing greetings from his family who haven’t heard from him........
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