April 17, 2025.

Today's Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, posted a picture of himself with Kilmar

Abrago Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration says it sent to the notorious

Seacott prison in El Salvador through administrative error, but can't get back, and wrote,

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. While the president of El Salvador, Naibu Keli, apparently tried to

stage a photo that would make it look as if the two men were enjoying a cocktail together,

it seems clear that backing down and giving Senator Van Hollen access to Abrago Garcia

is a significant shift from Buckely's previous scorn for those trying to address the crisis

of a man legally in the U.S., having been sent to prison in El Salvador without due process.

Buckely might be reassessing the distribution of power in the U.S.

According to Robert Jimison of the New York Times,

who traveled to El Salvador with Senator Van Hollen, when a reporter asked President Donald Trump

if he would move to return Abrago Garcia to the United States,

Trump answered, well, I'm not involved. You'll have to speak to the lawyers, the Department of Justice.

Today, a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's attempt to stop Judge Paula Sinez's order that it take

all available steps to bring Abrago Garcia back to the U.S. as soon as possible. Conservative

Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote the order. Notably, it began with a compliment to Judge

Cinez. We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement

the Supreme Court's recent decision, he wrote. Then Wilkinson turned his focus on the Trump

administration. It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter, he wrote.

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