President Donald Trump reacted to the controversial photo of Democratic Sen Chris Van Hollen with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration calls a gang leader and refuses to bring back ‘home’. the photo sparked off a controversy as El Salvador president Nayib Bukele commented that the Dem senator was sipping margaritas with the MS-13 member. Trump said Hollen ‘looked like a fool’ standing in El Salvador ‘begging for attention’ from the Fake News Media.
“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. GRANDSTANDER!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” Van Hollen said in a post on X. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.”
The meeting took place hours after Van Hollen claimed that he was denied entry into the high-security prison while he wanted to check on Garcia’s well-being. The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about two miles from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.
Maryland man or MS-13 gang member?
Garcia has been living in Maryland illegally but there was a court order stopping his deportation as he fled El Salvador to save his life from a gang war. Trump administration admitted in the court that Garcia was wrongly deported following which the judge ruled to bring him back. But that could never take place as US administration said it depended on the Salvador administration tpo release someone from jail. Bukele earlier said he could not just release a gang member and sneak him into the US.
Garcia’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura Friday said it was overwhelming to see her husband on television screen with the senaor.”The most important thing for me, my children, his mom, his brother, his sibling, was to see him alive, and we saw him alive,” she said.
