SAN SALVADOR: A delegation of Democratic lawmakers arrived in El Salvador on Monday in a new push to secure the release of a wrongly deported US resident at the center of a mounting political row.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent back to his country and remains imprisoned despite the Supreme Court ordering the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the man’s return to the United States.
“I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona said on social media.
“We want to make sure that Kilmar is still alive. We want to make sure that he has access to counsel,” added Ansari, who was accompanied by fellow US House Democrats Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost and Maxine Dexter.
“Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process,” Frost wrote on X.
“We must hold the Administration accountable for these illegal acts and demand Kilmar’s release. Today it’s him, tomorrow it could be anyone else,” the Florida representative added.
The visit comes days after Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen managed to meet with Abrego Garcia, though only after a considerable effort.
Van Hollen, who represents Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family have lived for years, accused the Central American nation of staging a photo of him supposedly sipping margaritas with Abrego Garcia.
Trump’s administration has paid El Salvador President Nayib Bukele millions of dollars to lock up nearly 300 migrants it says are criminals and gang members — including Abrego Garcia.
The 29-year-old was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime authority.
The Trump administration admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error,” and the Supreme Court ruled that the government must “facilitate” his return.
But Trump has since doubled down, insisting Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member.
Bukele, who was hosted at the White House last week, said he did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia.
The migrant’s supporters note he had protected legal status and no criminal conviction in the United States.
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people were ‘disappeared’ — I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here,” Ansari said in a statement.
“What happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not just one family’s nightmare — it is a constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us,” said Dexter, a congresswoman from Oregon.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that he was initially imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison for gang members, but was later transferred to a jail in the western department of Santa Ana.
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US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant
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US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant
- Yassamin Ansari: ‘I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home’
- Maxwell Frost: ‘Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process’
Beijing protests ‘political’ UK sanctions on Chinese cyber firms
BEIJING: Beijing denounced on Wednesday British sanctions on two Chinese companies which London alleged were involved in cyber activities against Britain, saying the measure amounted to “political manipulation” of security issues.
The British Foreign Office sanctioned on Tuesday Chinese-based companies i-Soon and Integrity Technology Group “for their vast and indiscriminate cyberactivities against the UK and its allies,” according to London’s top diplomat Yvette Cooper.
Several Russian entities were also sanctioned over accusations of distorting information in favor of Moscow.
Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference that “China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the UK’s practice of using cybersecurity issues for political manipulation.”
The government had lodged “stern representations” with British representatives in Beijing and London, Guo said.
A British Foreign Office policy paper released alongside the list of new sanctions said that cyber and information warfare was posing an increasing threat.
Foreign Secretary Cooper said that the activities London accuses i-Soon and Integrity of conducting “impact our collective security and our public services, yet those responsible operate with little regard for who or what they target.”
“And so we are ensuring that such reckless activity does not go unchecked,” she said.
- ‘Hybrid threats’ -
“Across Europe, we are witnessing an escalation in hybrid threats — from physical through to cyber and information warfare — designed to destabilize our democracies, weaken our critical national infrastructure, and undermine our interests, all for the advantage of malign foreign states,” said the Foreign Office policy paper paper.
Among the entities hit by the new sanctions is Russian media outlet Rybar “whose Telegram channel and network of affiliates in 28 languages reaches millions worldwide,” said Cooper.
It used “classic Kremlin manipulation tactics, including fake ‘investigations’ and AI driven content to shape narratives about global events in the Kremlin’s favor,” she added.
“Masquerading as an independent body,” Rybar is partially funded by Russia’s presidential administration, receives funding from state corporations and has worked with Russian intelligence, she said.
Also sanctioned is the Pravfond Foundation, which has been accused of being a front for Russian GRU foreign intelligence agency.
“Leaked reports suggest that Pravfond finances the promotion of Kremlin narratives to Western audiences as well as bankrolling legal defenses for convicted Russian assassins and arms traffickers,” Cooper said.
Alexander Dugin, a nationalist Russian philosopher widely thought to have influenced much of President Vladimir Putin’s thinking, was also sanctioned along with his think tank, the Center for Geopolitical Expertise.
Dugin has most notably championed “neo-Eurasianism,” a doctrine that says Russia must liberate the world from Western excesses by building an empire stretching from Europe to Asia.
The British Foreign Office sanctioned on Tuesday Chinese-based companies i-Soon and Integrity Technology Group “for their vast and indiscriminate cyberactivities against the UK and its allies,” according to London’s top diplomat Yvette Cooper.
Several Russian entities were also sanctioned over accusations of distorting information in favor of Moscow.
Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference that “China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the UK’s practice of using cybersecurity issues for political manipulation.”
The government had lodged “stern representations” with British representatives in Beijing and London, Guo said.
A British Foreign Office policy paper released alongside the list of new sanctions said that cyber and information warfare was posing an increasing threat.
Foreign Secretary Cooper said that the activities London accuses i-Soon and Integrity of conducting “impact our collective security and our public services, yet those responsible operate with little regard for who or what they target.”
“And so we are ensuring that such reckless activity does not go unchecked,” she said.
- ‘Hybrid threats’ -
“Across Europe, we are witnessing an escalation in hybrid threats — from physical through to cyber and information warfare — designed to destabilize our democracies, weaken our critical national infrastructure, and undermine our interests, all for the advantage of malign foreign states,” said the Foreign Office policy paper paper.
Among the entities hit by the new sanctions is Russian media outlet Rybar “whose Telegram channel and network of affiliates in 28 languages reaches millions worldwide,” said Cooper.
It used “classic Kremlin manipulation tactics, including fake ‘investigations’ and AI driven content to shape narratives about global events in the Kremlin’s favor,” she added.
“Masquerading as an independent body,” Rybar is partially funded by Russia’s presidential administration, receives funding from state corporations and has worked with Russian intelligence, she said.
Also sanctioned is the Pravfond Foundation, which has been accused of being a front for Russian GRU foreign intelligence agency.
“Leaked reports suggest that Pravfond finances the promotion of Kremlin narratives to Western audiences as well as bankrolling legal defenses for convicted Russian assassins and arms traffickers,” Cooper said.
Alexander Dugin, a nationalist Russian philosopher widely thought to have influenced much of President Vladimir Putin’s thinking, was also sanctioned along with his think tank, the Center for Geopolitical Expertise.
Dugin has most notably championed “neo-Eurasianism,” a doctrine that says Russia must liberate the world from Western excesses by building an empire stretching from Europe to Asia.
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