By Meg Kinnard, Associated Press
There were pool furniture in the background. There were tropical drinks, which seemed to be Margaritas lined with cherries. And then there was the expelled prisoner and the American senator, seated and chatting.
This senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, accused the government of El Salvador on Friday of aiming to paint the image of a quiet respite for the Kilmar Abrego Garcia wrongly by organizing their meeting with drinks seeming to be alcohol, and fishing to meet the meeting by a hotel swimming pool.
Van Hollen referred to the staging with a term that had turned to social networks for much of the day: “Margaritagate”.
“No one has drank margaritas or sugar water or anything,” said the Democratic senator, calling the whole situation “a lesson” in “the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people from what’s going on.”
A Salvadoral citizen who lived in Maryland, Abrego Garcia was sent to Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an order from the immigration court preventing his expulsion.
US President Donald Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said this week that they had no foundations to return it to the United States, even if the Trump administration had described its expulsion an error and the United States Supreme Court called for the administration to facilitate its return.
At a press conference on Friday at Dulles International Airport, just after his return from El Salvador, the Maryland Democrat said Bukele was aimed at “deceiving” people of what happened during his meeting with Abrego Garcia, in part by publishing a photo with drinks seeming to be alcohol.
When he and Abrego Garcia sat for a meeting at the hotel where Van Hollen was stayed, said the senator, they “had just glasses of water on the table, perhaps coffee”.
Subsequently, Van Hollen said: “One of the people of the government” on the sidelines of their half -hour meeting deposited other drinks on the table, with salt or sugar around the top – “but they look like Margaritas.”
On Thursday evening, Bukele published photos of Van Hollen seated with Abrego Garcia, including with drinks, garnished with marasing cherries.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously distant from” death camps “and” torture “, now sipping the Margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele wrote, adding an emoji of a tropical drink.
Van Hollen also noted that the government of Bukele initially proposed that he and Abrego Garcia direct their meeting by the pool at the hotel, rather than in the restaurant where they summoned.
“They want to create this appearance that life was simply charming for Kilmar,” said Van Hollen.
During the press conference on Friday, Van Hollen also revealed that Greo Garcia had told him that he was no longer detained at the High Security Terrorism Center, or Cecot, where he and others were initially led by leaving US Van Hollen declared that he had been initially refused to the establishment, but supposed on Friday who had been better.
“They decided that it was not a good aspect of continuing to hold Abrego Garcia without anyone having access to him,” said Van Hollen. He added that Greo Garcia told him that he had had no contact with anyone outside the prison since he had been moved from the United States.
We did not know where Abrego Garcia was taken after the meeting with Van Hollen.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wiped tears while Van Hollen was talking about her husband’s comments about wanting to speak with his wife. She did not speak during the press conference.
Kinnard can be attached to http://x.com/megkinnardap
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
