President Donald Trump’s White House openly mocked Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Friday by annotating a headline about his Thursday meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.

“Fixed it for you, New York Times,” the White House X account shared. “Oh, and by the way, Chris Van Hollen — he’s NOT coming back.”

Their changes to the paper’s piece titled “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador” included crossing out “Wrongly” in red ink and replacing the words “Maryland Man” with “MS-13 Illegal Alien.” They also added “Who’s Never Coming Back” to the end of the headline.

This social media update comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi, Border Czar Tom Homan and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt all shared similar sentiments regarding Abrego Garcia’s March deportation to the place of his birth this week.

“President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” Bondi told reporters on Wednesday. “If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation, ever, where he was going to stay in this country. None.”

“If he ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again,” Leavitt reiterated on Thursday. “Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never be a Maryland father, he will never live in the United States of America again.”

“I think we did the right thing, I think he’s where he should be,” Homan then told Kaitlan Collins on CNN on Friday. “Even if he came back, people think he’s going to be released? No, he’s going to be detained and he’s going to be removed, as per the order of removal, either to El Salvador or another country.”

Despite their allegations of Abrego Garcia being a terrorist due to his alleged ties to MS-13, the Department of Justice has made no such claims in court — just the court of public opinion. Additionally, Trump’s team previously said the deportation was a wrongful “administrative error” before later admitting it was intentional.

The post Trump White House Openly Mocks Maryland Senator for Meeting With Kilmar Abrego Garcia: ‘He’s NOT Coming Back’ appeared first on TheWrap.

A US senator described Friday how El Salvador staged a photo of him supposedly sipping margaritas with a wrongly deported constituent to cover up the man's ordeal in a notorious prison.

Chris Van Hollen denied that he drank cocktails with Kilmar Abrego Garcia while in El Salvador to meet the man, who was removed in what the White House has admitted was an "administrative error."

US President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have refused to bring about the Maryland father's release, despite a US federal judge's order -- backed by the Supreme Court -- for his return.

Van Hollen, a Democrat who represents Abrego Garcia's home state, met the metal worker Thursday at the senator's hotel in San Salvador.

He told reporters on his return to Washington that Abrego Garcia had been moved to a better prison an hour's drive away, but not before being scared for his safety in San Salvador's CECOT, known for reports of rights abuses.

Van Hollen said he realized he had been set up when Bukele posted photos on X of the meeting, alongside a caption stating that Abrego Garcia was "miraculously risen from the 'death camps' & 'torture,' now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!"

Later at the White House, Trump called Van Hollen a "fake" after he was asked about Bukele's post.

But the two-term senator said one of Bukele's aides had planted cocktail glasses on the table to make it look like Abrego Garcia was being detained in the lap of luxury.

"Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is. But this is a lesson into the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what's going on," Van Hollen said.

"And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and the president will go to, because when he was asked (by) a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride."

Van Hollen said Bukele's officials had even pushed for the meeting to take place beside the hotel's pool "to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar."

- 'Total blackout' -

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Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant, entered the United States illegally in 2011 but was given an indefinite reprieve from deportation in 2019.

He was among scores of deportees the Trump administration has paid Bukele's administration several million dollars to keep in detention.

Trump has not revealed the terms of the deal, including any arrangements for the detainees' care, how the contract is being monitored for compliance or when the prisoners will be released.

The US government says Abrego Garcia is a member of the notorious MS-13 Salvadoran gang, although the evidence it has produced has been dismissed as inadequate by a federal court.

He denies gang membership and has never been charged with crimes in either country.

Van Hollen shared details of his half-hour meeting with Abrego Garcia, saying the detainee told him he had been in a cell with around 25 others.

"He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT, and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways," the senator told reporters.

Van Hollen added that even under his better conditions, Abrego Garcia was still under a "total blackout," with no access to news from the outside world and no contact with family.

The senator said Abrego Garcia grew emotional as he spoke repeatedly about his five-year-old son, who has autism and was in the car when Kilmar was pulled over by US government agents in Maryland and handcuffed.

"His conversation with me was the first communication he had with anybody outside a prison since he was abducted. He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes," the Democrat went on.

"When I asked him what was the one thing he would ask for, in addition to his freedom, he said he wanted to talk to his wife, Jennifer."

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President Donald Trump speaks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia during Dr.Oz Swearing-In Ceremony

American Senator Chris Van Hollen said Thursday he had met with a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to his home country by the Trump administration, in a case that has sparked outrage in the United States.

Van Hollen had earlier said he had been denied access to the prison where Washington has paid President Nayib Bukele millions to lock up nearly 300 migrants it says are criminals and gang members -- including 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance," Van Hollen later posted on X with a photo of him sitting at what appeared to be a restaurant table with Abrego Garcia.

The dour-faced deportee is shown wearing a short-sleeved check shirt and a baseball cap.

Van Hollen added that he would offer "a full update upon my return" to the United States.

Abrego Garcia was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after President Donald Trump invoked a rarely-used wartime authority.

Trump administration officials have claimed he is an illegal migrant, a gang member and involved in human trafficking, without providing evidence.

Abrego Garcia had enjoyed a protected status in the United States, precluding his deportation to El Salvador for his own safety.

A federal judge has since ordered he be returned, later backed up by the Supreme Court.

But the administration -- despite admitting an "administrative error" in his deportation -- contends he is now solely in Salvadoran custody.

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- 'Staying in El Salvador' -

Bukele, who met Trump in Washington on Monday, said he does not have the power to send the man back.

The Salvadoran leader posted to X late Thursday that Abrego Garcia was "sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador."

The deportee in fact appeared to have a cup of coffee and glass of water on the table in front of him.

"Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody," Bukele added in another post.

Van Hollen, on the second day of his trip to El Salvador, had earlier tried to make his way to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) outside the capital San Salvador to see Abrego Garcia.

The car he was traveling in was stopped by soldiers, he said, about three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the complex holding thousands of Salvadoran gangsters, and now also hundreds of migrants expelled from the United States.

"We were told by the soldiers that they had been ordered not to allow us to proceed," the senator later told reporters.

- Cots without mattresses -

He said the goal had been to check on the health and well-being of Abrego Garcia, who had been "illegally abducted" and was now the subject of "illegal detention" in the same prison built to hold members of gangs who had previously threatened his family.

On Wednesday, Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa had denied Van Hollen permission to see the prisoner or even talk to him by telephone.

Asked why Abrego Garcia was being held at all, Ulloa told him "that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT," the senator recounted.

Bukele had built the CECOT to hold gang members rounded up in an iron-fisted anti-crime drive welcomed by most Salvadorans but widely denounced for violating human rights.

CECOT inmates are confined to their cells for all but 30 minutes a day, denied visits, forced to sleep on stainless steel cots without mattresses, and subsist on a diet of mostly beans and pasta.

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Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen was in El Salvador meeting with Kilmar Ábrego García who was deported under the Trump administration.