Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador, is no longer being kept at the country's infamous CECOT mega-prison.
The senator gave the update while holding a press conference related to his trip to the Central American country this week, where he met with Abrego Garcia on Thursday. Van Hollen detailed that Abrego Garcia told him he was initially taken to Baltimore, then Texas, and then put on a plane, having "no idea where he was going."
Abrego Garcia also told the senator that he was "traumatized" by being held at the prison but that he had been moved to a different facility nine days ago. He claimed the Salvadoran government decided "it was not a good look" to keep him there.
President Donald Trump criticized Van Hollen's trip, saying in a post on Truth Social that he was a "fool" and accused him of "begging for attention" during the visit.
"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. "GRANDSTANDER!!!"
Photos of the meeting were reposted online by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, who mocked U.S. media coverage of the case. "He (Abrego García) has miraculously risen from the 'death camps' & 'torture,' and was now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador," Bukele wrote on X. He added that Abrego Garcia would remain in Salvadoran custody:
Van Hollen addressed the picture, saying Bukele was seeking to "deceive" people, as "one of the government people" present during the meeting placed the beverages "with salt or sugar around the top, but they look like margaritas." He added that neither of them drank from them.
"They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar," the senator said.
Originally published on Latin Times
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