Sen. Chris Van Hollen went on a media blitz after his trip to El Salvador, and the goal was clear: Humanize the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the country despite a stay of withholding. He met Abrego Garcia in a Salvadoran prison and hit all five Sunday shows to talk about it. And yet, for all the airtime, the story didn’t land the way I think Van Hollen wanted it to. It was sanitized, light on emotion, and strangely absent of the gritty details you’d expect from someone who made a point of flying thousands of miles to meet a man at the center of a constitutional and humanitarian flashpoint.
What we got instead were polished talking points — almost too polished. It didn’t feel like a man fighting to bring Abrego Garcia back. It felt like someone fighting for due process, in a general, distant sense. And that might be the most telling part of the whole thing. When Van Hollen said, “I’m not defending the man, I’m defending the man’s rights,” it gave the impression that even he’s not totally sold on Garcia’s character. Maybe that’s smart politics, maybe it’s just hedging. Either way, it tells you something about how shaky the foundation of this message really is.
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