Trump Team Turns Abrego Garcia Meeting Into Sick Joke

Donald Trump’s administration won’t stop making horrific jokes about Senator Chris Van Hollen’s meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garica, whom the government wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month.

Van Hollen was able to meet with Abrego Garcia Thursday, after El Salvador’s government refused to release him and the Maryland Democrat was initially denied access to the prison where he was being held.

In a post on X Friday, the White House wrote that it had “fixed” a New York Times headline about the meeting.

The original headline, “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Man in El Salvador” had been edited in red pen so that it read, “Senator Meets with Deported MS-13 Alien in El Salvador Who’s Never Coming Back.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that it was up to El Salvador’s government to return or keep Abrego Garcia, but she was adamant that he was “not coming back to our country.”

Bondi also said that the media should apologize to Trump for calling Abrego Garcia a “Maryland man,” even though that’s just a simple description of who he is and where he lives.

This post follows another cruel joke from the White House earlier Friday, where Trump staff compared Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia to a meeting between Trump and Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, a woman who was raped and killed by a Salvadoran man in 2023. The Trump administration has repeatedly trotted out Morin as a means of justifying its decision to send brown men who had nothing to do with that crime to a foreign prison.

The Trump administration has claimed that Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record, was not only a member of MS-13, but that he was a “top leader” and “engaged in human trafficking,” while only providing thin evidence that he was even affiliated with the group.

This story has been updated.