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After initially being rebuffed, Sen Chris Van Hollen was able to meet with his constituent Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. 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.
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@vanhollen.senate.gov)2025-04-18T01:02:08.991Z
The first pictures were posted online by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, so there’s a guy with one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave trying to balance between two competing interests. I don’t want to predict what will happen next but this is better than expected.
Van Hollen was smart to just hop on a commercial flight and go to San Salvador. The official CODEL to El Salvador is being blocked by Republicans in the House, unsurprisingly.
Yesterday a Reagan appointed judge who has been on the short list for the Supreme Court a few times authored an opinion rejecting the Trump Administration's appeal in the Abrego Garcia case. The opinion is, I’m sure on purpose, readable, clear and unambiguous:
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.
The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.24(f) (requiring that the government prove “by a preponderance of evidence” that the alien is no longer entitled to a withholding of removal). Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?
This can’t stop with Kilmar Abrego Garcia — every single person in that gulag needs to come back to the US and have a fair court hearing. This isn’t a fucking video game or Netflix limited series. Democrats need to insist on the CODEL, and if that doesn’t happen, they can hop on a plane and head to El Salvador to talk with their constituents in the gulag. Also, what Jamelle Bouie said:
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