https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLRrXQxfIpw
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks at a press conference on his privileged legislation with Sens. Kaine (D-VA) and Schumer (D-NY) to require the Trump Administration to produce a report detailing the Administration’s steps to comply with court orders applicable to U.S. citizens or residents wrongfully deported to El Salvador. This resolution would also require the Trump Administration to confirm whether U.S. security assistance has been used to support the illegal detention of U.S. residents and provide an assessment of El Salvador’s human rights record. Because the legislation is privileged, all senators will be required to vote on it and publicly demonstrate their commitment to Americans’ Constitutional right to due process.
Transcript
i want to start by thanking my good
friend partner across the battoomeac Tim
Kaine as he said we work on lots of
issues together for this region for our
states but we also work very closely on
foreign policy issues uh and there's
nobody who knows uh the Western
Hemisphere and Latin America better than
Senator Tim Kaine uh he as you know
chaired and now is the ranking member of
the subcommittee on the western
hemisphere and that jurisdiction also
includes human rights and and democracy
so thank you for your passion for
universal human rights in our hemisphere
and around the world and that's what
this is all about because the right to
due process is a bedright bedrock
American principle and in his first 100
days Donald Trump is shredding the
Constitution of the United States he's
violated these rights in many instances
including the illegal abduction and
deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who
was snatched off the streets of Maryland
while driving with his 5-year-old son
who has autism and he was shipped to
Baltimore then Texas and then shackled
and handcuffed put in a plane not where
he knowing where he was going and ended
up in the notorious prison of Secot one
of the real goologs of Latin America the
Trump
administration admitted in court
admitted in court that ago Garcia had
been wrongfully shipped to El Salvador
and the Supreme Court by a nine to
nothing vote ordered the Trump
administration to facilitate his return
you don't see nine to nothing rulings
out of the court very often and of
course Donald Trump could easily bring
him back by simply picking up the phone
on the Resolute desk how do we know that
because President Trump said so himself
within the last 48 hours
so we also know that the government of
El Salvador is prepared to release
him if they can hear from the president
of the United States and they facilitate
his return how do we know that because
when I spoke to the vice president of Al
Salvador he was very clear he said the
ball is not in El Salvador's court the
ball is in the Trump administration's
court and he said that the only reason
the government of El Salvador is holding
him is because the Trump administration
is paying him to do so
so Donald Trump should stop trampling on
constitutional rights of people who
reside in America and the government of
El Salvador should stop conspiring with
the Trump administration to violate the
constitutional rights of those who
reside in America including Abrego
Garcia and others president Boule and El
Salvador are complicit in this illegal
scheme
this is a cash for collusion
deal not surprisingly Donald Trump chose
President Boule as his co-conspirator in
this effort president Buhy has referred
to referred to himself as the world's
quote coolest dictator
when I traveled recently to El Salvador
I met with many Salvadorian human rights
groups who described the gross
violations of human rights and due
process in El Salvador by President
Boule and his government and the 2023
State Department human rights report
found that in Boule's prisons there were
credible reports of and I'm quoting
torture and other cruel inhuman or
degrading punishment they went on to say
in that report that that degrading
inhuman punishment
includes beatings with bat batons
electric shocks on wet floors to shock
an entire cell overcrowding underfeeding
and life-threatening medical neglect
that was the 2023 State Department human
rights report
no one can communicate with ago Garcia
or others in those prisons of El
Salvador either not his wife not his
mother not his lawyer that is a
violation of international law and yet
that is where the Trump
administration dispatched this person
because of an administrative
error
and now we've learned that the Trump
administration wants to excise those
provisions from the human rights report
regarding prison conditions and actually
give El Salvador preferential treatment
so that's why we're introducing this
resolution today and again I want to
thank my friend and colleague Senator
Kaine i want to thank Senator Schumer
Senator Padilla and our House colleagues
we're doing this both to require the
Trump administration to answer for its
unconstitutional violations of due
process and send a message to President
Bali that no it is not cool to collude
with Trump to provide to deprive people
living in America the right to due
process donald Trump he may want to
adopt El Salvador's approach to
violating human rights but we don't we
will not model our judicial system on El
Salvador's kangaroo courts in addition
to this resolution I've called upon all
Americans who care about their due
process rights to vote with their
feet don't go to El Salvador as tourists
so long as the government of El Salvador
is violating the constitutional rights
of people who reside in America there
are lots of other nice countries in the
region like Costa Rica or Guatemala or
others i've also called upon states to
divest pension fund holdings from
companies that do business in El
Salvador and I was pleased to see
Governor Prit Pritsker of Illinois
announce the plan to do that and finally
stay tuned because Senator Kaine and I
along with Senator Schumer and others uh
are planning to also
introduce sanctions legislation
targeting President Bali and all those
who are part of his government
conspiring with Donald Trump to deprive
residents of the United States of their
constitutional rights and thank all of
you for being here and again thanks to
my friend uh Tim Kaine for um all his
leadership on this and so many issues
great
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