Judgefare

Van Hollen’s big moment: Defending a constituent and defying Trump– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Chris Van Hollen has spent nearly a decade as an under-the-radar lawmaker. But the Maryland Democrat, who gave up a leadership trajectory in the House to serve in the Senate, may now finally be meeting his moment.

Van Hollen has grabbed the national spotlight amid a two-day trip to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration on erroneous charges of gang membership. After being initially blocked from entering a maximum-security prison by the Salvadoran government, Van Hollen ultimately succeeded in sitting down Thursday with his constituent, who had since been transferred to another detention facility.

“If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America,” Van Hollen said Friday at a press conference at Dulles International Airport, shortly after returning from El Salvador.

He was flanked by advocates holding signs emblazoned with the words, “Thank you Senator Van Hollen.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was “traumatized” at CECOT, Sen. Van Hollen says after meeting in El Salvador– www.cbsnews.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen returned from his trip to El Salvador Friday after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was deported due to an administrative error.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday, April 16, to check on Abrego Garcia’s health and well-being, a month after he was deported to a Salvadoran supermax prison known as CECOT.

“His conversation with me was the first communication that he had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted. He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes,” Van Hollen said.

However, he said, Abrego Garcia has since been moved to another prison where he says the conditions are better.

“He told me, and this was yesterday, eight days ago, so nine days ago from today, he was moved to another detention center in Santa Ana, where the conditions are better. But he said, despite the better conditions, he still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world,” Van Hollen said.

Trump highlights photo of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles with apparent MS-13 tattoos– www.washingtonexaminer.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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President Donald Trump argued Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos prove he is a MS-13 gang member who should not be allowed back into the United States.

On Friday evening, Trump highlighted a photo of Abrego Garcia’s hand that appeared to contain “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles. MS-13 is a Salvadoran-native gang that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person.’ They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc,” the president wrote in a post to Truth Social.

The photo Trump showed included labels claiming to identify what the tattoos, each on one knuckle, represented. “M” was supposedly represented by a marijuana leaf, “S” was represented by a smiley face, “1” was represented by a cross, and “3” was a skull, according to the legend, with the latter two images possibly being to cover up the two numbers.

 

Wrongful deportation highlights Democratic split on how to fight Trump– www.dailykos.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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The Democratic Party faces a growing rift over how to take on President Donald Trump. On one side, younger, more defiant members are pushing for generational change and a harder line. On the other? Moderates and institutionalists who seem pretty comfortable clinging to the status quo.

The split has been on full display in the party’s response to the wrongful deportation of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador without due process.

Democrats like Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen have been on the front lines, demanding accountability and treating the case like the crisis it is. Others, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are dismissing the party’s focus on Garcia as a “distraction,” urging Democrats to hit Trump on tariffs and trade instead.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, right, speaks with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration wrongly deported El Salvador, in a hotel restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador, on April 17.

BREAKING: President Trump shares photos of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s MS-13 gang tattoos | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such a ‘fine and innocent person,'” President Trump wrote.

On Friday, President Donald Trump released a photo of the tattoos belonging to MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador after unlawfully residing in the United States. The tattoos on his knuckles are affiliated with the MS-13 gang, which include a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull. These symbols are intended to spell out “MS-13.”

The photo evidence comes after Democratic lawmakers claimed that the Trump administration unlawfully deported illegal immigrant Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CEDOT), who had been residing in the United States with his wife in Maryland. This resulted in Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) travelling to El Salvador in an attempt to bring the foreign terrorist back to the US.

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such a ‘fine and innocent person,'” President Trump wrote on X. “They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump Slams “Weak, Ineffective” Judges As Deportation Row Intensifies– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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The clash over President Donald Trump’s bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants deepened Sunday as he again bashed the judiciary, while a top Democrat warned the country was “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.

The latest events followed a dramatic intervention by the Supreme Court in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to temporarily block Trump’s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.

Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”

Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”

Supreme Court Blocks Trump Admin’s Use Of Wartime Law To Deport Venezuelan Migrants, At Least For Now– www.vanityfair.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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As of Saturday morning, the White House had not immediately responded to a request from Reuters for comment. When President Trump was asked on Friday about the planned deportations of the Venezuelan men, he claimed he was unfamiliar with the particular case, but said that “if they’re bad people,” he would “certainly authorize it.”

The Trump administration—including the president, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and other immigration officials—have in the few months since taking office rolled out a coordinated onslaught against immigrants, both documented and not, across the country. This comes after Trump, when running for office, referred to immigrants as “animals” and said that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

In March, more than 130 men whom the Trump administration claimed were Tren de Aragua members were deported to El Salvador. Family members and lawyers for the men have said they were singled out because of tattoos that they have, but an expert on the gang told NBC that tattoos are not closely connected with affiliation to Tren de Aragua and that “Venezuelan gangs are not identified by tattoos.” (Immigration officials have maintained that they did not solely rely on tattoos to identify the deportees as alleged gang members.)

US senator says margaritas in photo with wrongly deported man planted by El Salvador – as it happened | US news– www.theguardian.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Speaking to reporters at Dulles airport in Washington on Friday afternoon, the senator Chris Van Hollen just accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself and Kilmar Ábrego García as they met the night before, to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks.

Those photographs were posted on X by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, along with a caption that downplayed the seriousness of the situation by falsely claiming that the senator and the wrongly deported man had been “sipping margaritas” as they met on Thursday evening.

But the senator said that the drinks were placed there during the meeting by someone from the Salvadoran government before the photographs were taken and that neither he nor Ábrego García had touched them. Van Hollen pointed out that there was visual evidence for this in the photographs: the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar, but it was clear from the images that neither glass had been drunk from, since the rims were undisturbed.

House Oversight Chairman DENIES Democrats’ Request for Taxpayer-Funded El Salvador Trip: “Pay For It Yourself”– wltreport.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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House Oversight Chairman James Comer has denied a request from two Democrat Representatives who sought approval of funds to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.

Reps. Robert Garcia and Maxwell Frost had asked to receive funds from the Congressional budget (that’s taxpayer money) to fly down to El Salvador and meet with alleged MS-13 gang member and wife-beater Abrego Garcia.

Comer bluntly shut down the request, telling the Democrat Congressmen that he will “not approve a single dime of taxpayer funds” to be used for such a purpose. He noted that Democrat Sen. Van Hollen already visited Abrego Garcia.

“If you also wish to meet with him, you can spend your own money,” he stated.

Trump slams ‘weak’ judges as deportation row intensifies– economictimes.indiatimes.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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The clash over President Donald Trump‘s bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants deepened Sunday as he again bashed the judiciary, while a top Democrat warned the country was “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.

The latest events followed a dramatic intervention by the Supreme Court in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to temporarily block Trump‘s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.

Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”

Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”

“Literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief… without hearing from the opposing party,” Alito wrote in his dissent.

 

U.S. senator to travel to El Salvador if Trump won’t return wrongfully deported man – National– globalnews.ca

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is vowing to travel to El Salvador to negotiate the release of a wrongly deported man after the Trump administration ignored a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate his return to the U.S.

In a letter sent to the El Salvadorian Ambassador on April 13 before Trump’s tête-à-tête with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Van Hollen requested a meeting with Bukele during his U.S. visit to discuss “the illegal detention of [his] constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” after the Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to unanimously uphold U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s ruling that he was wrongly deported and that the U.S. government was responsible for bringing him home.

(It’s unclear if Van Hollen ever got to meet with Bukele.)

Democrats line up to visit El Salvador — seeking to bring back a foreign gangbanger– www.americanthinker.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Democrats have finally found a cause they can rally around, and they are falling over themselves to make themselves part of it:

According to Axios:

 

Two members of House Democratic leadership are trying to send an official congressional delegation to the El Salvadorian prison where the Trump administration is sending deportees, Axios has learned.

 

Why it matters: Dozens of House Democrats have privately expressed interest in participating in such a trip to protest the Trump administration’s deportation policies, sources tell Axios.

 

    • But while lawmakers could travel to the Central American country informally, a Republican committee chair’s approval is needed to send an official congressional delegation, or CODEL.

 

    • A CODEL would provide the members with crucial oversight powers and security resources.

BREAKING: Wife of ‘Maryland Man’ Abrego Garcia filed domestic violence protective order against him in 2021 | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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The wife of Kilmar Garcia, a man who was deported from Maryland to his native El Salvador in March 14, has spoken out publicly to ask that he be returned to the US and their family. A GoFundMe crowdsourcing campaign has raised over $165,000. What Jenniefer Vasquez did not mention, however, is that she petitioned for a domestic violence protective order against him in 2021.

Revealing the information about the protective order in a post, Andy Ngo said “The wife of deported suspected gang terrorist Kilmar Abrego Garcia either lied to the court when she petitioned for a domestic violence protective order against him or she is lying now on the GoFundMe claiming he is an excellent husband as over $162K has poured in.” The case detail shows that it was brought by Vasquez against Garcia in May 2021 for domestic violence. The case has since been closed. Garcia has been referred to by many media outlets as a “Maryland man” or “Maryland dad.”

Per The Chesepeake Today, “Jennifer Vasquez filed for a protective order due to domestic violence from her husband on May 13, 2021, and a final order was issued on June 17, 2021, by Prince George’s County District Court Judge LaKeecia Allen. Judge Allen was elevated to the Circuit Court on Aug. 1, 2024, by Maryland Governor Wes Moore. Judge Allen previously served as a prosecutor in the Prince George’s State’s Attorney’s Office.”

In a press conference, Vasquez said “I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive.” She spoke directly to Garcia, saying “stay strong. God has not forgotten about you.” She said she was “pleading with the Trump administration and the Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.” Their children, she said, miss their father. “I hope that the strength of faith and the resilience within us will keep us standing after all the punches we continue to receive. Our ability to fight back against these governments are testimonies to the fight and strength that God has given us.”

Dem Lawmakers Planning Trip to El Salvador in Effort to Bring Back Illegal Alien Gang Member › American Greatness– amgreatness.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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Democrat lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are reportedly planning trips to El Salvador to seek the release of an alleged MS-13 gang member and bring him back to the United States where he lived illegally from 2012 until March 2025.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was among the hundreds of illegal immigrants—a large percentage of them MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang members—deported to El Salvador last month under the Alien Enemies Act.

On Monday, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) reportedly sent a letter to El Salvador’s ambassador to the United States asking for a meeting with the President Nayib Bukele while he was in Washington D.C.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Armando Bukele told reporters during a meeting with President Donald Trump later in the day that he “of course” would not “smuggle” Kilmar Abrego Garcia back into the United States.

Judge Who Blocked Trump From Deporting Biden’s Migrants Busted as Dem Donor With Close Ties to Democrats– conservativeroof.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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United States District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by former President Barack Obama, has past ties to Democrats and ruled against immigration enforcement in the first Trump administration.

This week, Talwani blocked President Donald Trump from deporting migrants who were released into the United States interior via former President Joe Biden’s parole pipeline.

The decision by Talwani to prevent Trump from ending Biden’s parole pipeline, thus preventing the administration from deporting more than 530,000 migrants with no legal status in the United States, is among many from Democrat-appointed federal judges who have halted the White House from implementing its agenda.

Talwani was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 2013 by then-President Obama. In her Senate questionnaire, Talwani revealed that she had volunteered for Obama’s presidential campaign.

Talwani also volunteered for Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), and Martha Coakley’s (D) failed Senate campaign.

Lawmaker flat-out admits Democrats regularly discuss ‘legal strategy’ to thwart Trump administration– www.theblaze.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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President Donald Trump and his administration have long been the targets of lawfare motivated by leftists, stretching back to his first term. Although Democrats have played semantic games to categorize these attacks as anything other than politically motivated, one lawmaker finally said the quiet part out loud.

Democratic Rep. Laura Friedman of California told town hall attendees Monday that she and her colleagues regularly gather in closed-door meetings dedicated to plotting legal attacks against Trump and his administration.

While this practice has become commonplace within the Democratic Party, congressional Republicans are doing what they can to put a stop to it.

“Every single week we have a litigation working group where a large group of us, and I’m talking there’s maybe 75 members of the House, sit down every single week with the [attorneys general] to talk about legal strategy,” Friedman said. “This is all going on every single week behind the scenes. It is nonstop.”

Friedman quickly diluted the severity of her admission by mentioning additional and more common avenues politicians use to attack each other.

“It is nonstop introduction of bills and legislation, nonstop being on social media as much as we can without being throttled, without the, you know, crazy analytics, and doing all these things,” Friedman said.

Obama Far-Left Judge Halts Trump’s Effort to Remove Legal Status of 530,000 Immigrants Brought Into Country by Biden– gellerreport.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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A Massachusetts federal judge stopped the Trump administration late Monday from yanking legal status from more than 530,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals who were brought into the US under a controversial Biden administration parole program. Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled that the migrants are entitled to a case-by-case review and declined to put her decision on hold while the Trump administration appeals it.

Biden’s  parole program was granted by executive order, so the program can be terminated by executive order. If the Democrats wanted it to be permanent, they needed to go through Congress and get it signed into law.

Furthermore, the  Supreme court just ruled that a district judge cannot issue a nationwide injunction.

Eleven Trump executive orders that have been struck down– www.washingtonexaminer.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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President Donald Trump has issued an avalanche of executive actions since returning to the White House, but not all of them have held up to initial judicial scrutiny.

While Trump has been successful with several of his actions, others have been struck down by federal courts. The Trump administration still has avenues to appeal all of the negative rulings, but these are the orders currently paused by the courts.

Judge Allows AG Bondi to Dismiss Gun Charge Against MS-13 Leader, Paving Way for Quick Deportation– conservativeroof.com

pgnewser April 21, 2025 0

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A federal judge in Virginia has granted the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) request to dismiss a gun charge against a Salvadoran national whom Trump administration officials have called a senior leader of the notorious MS-13 transnational gang—clearing the way for his possible swift deportation.

In a minute order issued on April 15, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick approved the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the criminal complaint against 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos but delayed entry of the order until 10 a.m. on April 18 to give his defense attorney time to explore potential legal avenues to prevent his transfer into immigration custody.

The dismissal comes just weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference that Santos is “one of the top three” MS-13 leaders in the United States and that he would not be “living in our country much longer.” President Donald Trump also weighed in, calling the arrest a major victory in his administration’s campaign to crack down on foreign gangs that pose a threat to American communities.

Federal prosecutors filed only a single charge against Santos—possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant—after an FBI SWAT team raided his family home in Woodbridge, Virginia, on March 27. According to the affidavit, investigators found multiple firearms and “indicia of MS-13 association” in his bedroom, but no gang-related charges were ever filed.