How the Abrego Garcia standoff ends

Today, Explained

Vox

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland recounts his visit with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Former prosecutor Elie Honig explains the three scenarios that could end this legal standoff. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Sen. Van Hollen during his meeting with Garcia at an undisclosed location in San Salvador. Photo by Sen. Van Hollen's Office via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On March 12, Kilmar Abrago-Garcia was picked up by ICE in Prince George's County, Maryland.
0:07.6	In the days it followed, he was deported to the country where he was born, El Salvador,
0:12.3	except this time he wound up in its infamous Sikot prison.
0:16.1	At Sikot, they don't let any of the prisoners have access to the outside world.
0:21.7	On March 31st, the Trump administration said it had mistakenly deported Abregio Garcia, calling it an administrative error.
0:28.8	On April 4th, a U.S. district judge told the Trump administration to have Abrago Garcia back in the United States by April 7th.
0:35.2	On April 10th, the Supreme Court entered the chat and more or less
0:38.5	agreed saying the Trump administration needed to get Abraigo Garcia back, but it's April 23rd,
0:43.6	and he's still not back. On today, explained, we're going to speak with the Maryland
0:49.0	senator who sat down with Abrago Garcia in El Salvador last week and figure out how this legal
0:55.0	standoff between the Trump administration and the courts might play out.
1:00.2	Megan Rapino here. This week on a touch more, we open up the mailbag and answer your burning
1:05.7	questions. And we have a great conversation with two-time Olympic medalists, Lauren Holiday, about the business of women's sports and how to support and grow the next generation of female athletes.
1:16.5	Check out the latest episode of A Touch More, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.
1:26.9	Sean Ramos for him today explained, we spoke to Senator Chris Van Hollen on Tuesday afternoon.
1:32.2	We started with why he wanted to go down to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
1:38.4	Well, because I wanted to let him know, number one, that I was bringing greetings from his family who haven't heard from him
1:45.6	since he was disappeared, right? He was locked away. No one was able to reach him, not his wife,
1:52.6	not his mom, not his lawyers. In fact, until this moment, I'm the only one who's communicated
1:58.5	with him before or since.
2:06.3	So I wanted to, number one, see if he was a lie, but I also wanted to let him know that his case was something that was meaningful to every American who cares about the Constitution.
2:13.6	And I wanted to ask the government of El Salvador to stop being complicit, complicit with the Trump administration in this illegal scheme.
	...

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