Senate Democrat meets Ábrego García in El Salvador as legal battles continue – US politics live
Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with news that Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.
The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Ábrego García, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US.
It was not clear how the meeting was arranged, where they met or what will happen to Ábrego García. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
The Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the US “should be shocking,” a federal appeals court said Thursday in a blistering order that ratchets up the escalating conflict between the government’s executive and judicial branches.
A three-judge panel from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican president Ronald Reagan, wrote that he and his two colleagues “cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”
For the full report, see here:
In other news:
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James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”.
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.
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The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship.
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In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence.
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After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”.
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Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend.
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The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale.
Key events
Tom Perkins
Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” and the Trump administration have spared the jobs of US Department of Transportation employees who provide support services for spacecraft launches by Musk’s companies, SpaceX and Starlink – a revelation that raises a new round of conflict of interest questions around Doge.
In its most recent buyout announcement, the transportation department did not note that the positions spared supported Musk’s and others’ space operations.
But the fiscal year 2025 transportation department budget reviewed by the Guardian details funding for positions in pipeline management, transportation management, air traffic control and cybersecurity that the document states are critical for commercial space operations, including SpaceX, Starlink and other entities.
The decision to keep launch support staff employed while broadly cutting potentially thousands of other positions at the agency has raised fresh ethical questions about Musk and Doge’s aggressive assault on the federal workforce.
Rachel Leingang
Republicans in nearly half of state legislatures have proposed bills to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote.
Conservatives in California are pushing for a voter ID ballot measure that would require citizenship verification to register to vote and photo identification to get a ballot.
A Republican lawmaker in Pennsylvania filed a bill to create a voter ID in the swing state, praising voters in Wisconsin that voted to approve a new ID law in the midwestern battleground state.
Donald Trump won both the electoral college and the popular vote last year, but his win hasn’t stopped the ongoing Republican quest to restrict access to elections. In fact, Republicans in state legislatures across the country have been emboldened by the president’s calls to secure US elections, even with no evidence that voter fraud is a legitimate problem.
They have filed bills under the pretense of election integrity, including stricter voter ID provisions, documentary proof of citizenship requirements, hurdles for citizens’ ballot measures, restrictions on voter eligibility and the mail voting process, and pre-emptions that would make ranked choice voting illegal.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said Friday that the US may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.
He spoke in Paris after landmark talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress, AP reported.
A new meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested that could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters upon departure. “Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on.”
“It’s not our war,” Rubio said. “We have other priorities to focus on.”
He said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days.”
US vice-president JD Vance arrived in Rome on Friday for meetings with the Vatican No. 2 and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, fresh off the Italian leader’s visit to the White House a day earlier, AP reports.
Meloni, who has positioned herself as a bridge between the US and Europe, received praise from president Donald Trump for her crackdown on migration during a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday.
Vance, who attended the meetings, was scheduled to meet with the Italian leader Friday in Rome and planned to attend Easter weekend events at the Vatican.
He was scheduled to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the White House said.
Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with news that Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.
The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Ábrego García, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US.
It was not clear how the meeting was arranged, where they met or what will happen to Ábrego García. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying: “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
The Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the US “should be shocking,” a federal appeals court said Thursday in a blistering order that ratchets up the escalating conflict between the government’s executive and judicial branches.
A three-judge panel from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican president Ronald Reagan, wrote that he and his two colleagues “cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”
For the full report, see here:
In other news:
-
James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, and Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican leadership, have launched an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the university of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws”.
-
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.
-
The supreme court said it will hear arguments next month over Donald Trump’s bid to restrict automatic birthright citizenship.
-
In their unanimous opinion issued today, a US appeals court warned the Trump administration that battles against the judiciary could undermine public confidence.
-
After weeks of strong rhetoric, the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he thought trade deals could be finished in the “next three or four weeks”.
-
Trump on Thursday extended a government-wide federal hiring freeze that was set to expire this weekend.
-
The Washington DC headquarters for the Department of Housing and Urban Development may soon be up for sale.
