The Democrat senator who flew to meet the man wrongly deported to El Salvador has said photos of them with margaritas were staged by officials working for the country’s president.

Chris Van Hollen added that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from the US last month, told him he has been moved from a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador to a detention centre with better conditions.

The deportation of Mr Garcia has become a flashpoint in the US, with Democrats casting it as a cruel consequence of Donald Trump’s disregard for the courts, while Republicans have criticised Democrats for defending him and argued his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.

Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, is being detained in the Central American country despite the US Supreme Court calling on the White House to facilitate his return home.

Trump officials have said Mr Garcia has ties to the violent MS-13 gang. However, Mr Garcia’s attorneys say the government has provided no evidence, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Mr Van Hollen flew to El Salvador and met with Mr Garcia this week in an effort to help secure his return to America.

Speaking to reporters at Washington Dulles International airport after returning to the US on Friday, Mr Van Hollen said: “As the federal courts have said, we need to bring Mr Abrego Garcia home to protect his constitutional rights to due process. And it’s also important that people understand this case is not just about one man.

“It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.”

Mr Van Hollen added the Trump administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country” in foreign prisons “without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order”.

The senator also revealed Mr Garcia was brought from a detention centre to his hotel after initial requests to meet or speak with him were denied.

Mr Van Hollen said Mr Garcia told him he was “traumatised” after being detained at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, but he had been moved to a “different facility” with better conditions nine days ago.

The senator said Mr Garcia told him he was worried about his family and that thinking about them was giving him “the strength to persevere” and to “keep going” under awful circumstances.

Mr Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, was at the news conference and wiped away tears as Mr Van Hollen spoke of her husband’s desire to speak to her.

Earlier, Mr Van Hollen had posted photos of himself meeting with Mr Garcia.

It came before El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared his own images of the meeting, which he claimed showed the pair “sipping margaritas” in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador”.

In an apparent sarcastic remark, Mr Bukele wrote that Mr Garcia had “miraculously risen” from the “death camps”.

Giving an account of what he says happened when the photos were taken, Mr Van Hollen said: “We just had glasses of water on the table. I think maybe some coffee.

“And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice. And I don’t know if it was salt or sugar round the top, but they looked like margaritas.

“If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmer, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in me in front of me to try to make it look, I assume like he drank out of it.

“Let me just be very clear. Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.”

He added that people can tell he is telling the truth because if someone had sipped from one of the glass there would be a “gap” where the “salt or sugar” had disappeared.

Mr Van Hollen said the image shows the “lengths” the El Salvadorian president will go to “deceive people about what’s going on”.

“It also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and [President Trump] will go to, because when he was asked by a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride.”

Changes to how death certificates are issued in England and Wales have made the grieving process more “stressful”, according to bereaved families.

Anne Short died on New Year’s Eve, only a few months after she was diagnosed with cancer.

Her son Elliot, 30, from Newport, South Wales, says the grieving process was made harder after having to wait eight weeks to hold her funeral.

“Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous, when you’re already going through all this pain and suffering as a family,” he told Sky News.

“You can’t move on, you can’t do anything, you can’t arrange anything, you can’t feel that they’re at peace, you can’t put yourself at peace, because of a process that’s been put in that nobody seems to know anything about at the moment.”

That process has been introduced by the government to address “concerns” about how causes of death were previously scrutinised, following high-profile criminal cases such as those of Harold Shipman and Lucy Letby.

Up until last September, causes of death could be signed off by a GP, but now they have to be independently scrutinised by a medical examiner, before a death certificate can be issued.

‘I felt helpless’

Mr Short said he was ringing “twice a day” for a progress update, but that it was “going through too many sets of hands”.

Until the death certificate was issued, Ms Short’s body could not be released into the care of the funeral director.

“The main stress for me was knowing that she was up there [at the hospital] and I couldn’t move her, so I felt helpless, powerless,” he said.

“I felt like I’d let her down in a lot of ways. I know now, looking back, that there’s nothing that we could have done, but at the time it was adding a lot of stress. I just wanted her out of there.”

‘Something has to be done’

Mr Short fears there’s a risk the new process might defeat its purpose.

“There’s other people that I know that have lost since, where it’s been in a care home or something like that, where they haven’t been happy with the care they’ve had, but they haven’t raised that because you’re in this bubble of grief and you just want to get it done,” he said.

“Something has to be done about that because I think it just drags on the grief and there’s obviously a danger then of it being against the reasons why they’re trying to do it.”

Arrangements after the death of his father less than two years ago was a “much easier process”, according to Mr Short.

“I lost my father as well 15 months before, so we went through the process prior to this coming in and we had the death certificate, he died at home, but we had it within three days,” he added.

‘State of limbo’

James Tovey is the sixth generation of his family running Tovey Bros, a funeral director in Newport.

He told Sky News that the delays were having a “huge impact” on the business and that the families they serve were being “left in a state of limbo” for weeks after their bereavement.

“I would say that most funerals will take place perhaps two to four weeks after the person’s passed away, whereas now it’s much more like four to six weeks, so it is quite a significant difference,” he said.

“It’s one thing on top of an already distressing time for them and we’re frustrated and upset for [the families] as much as anybody else and it’s just annoying that we can’t do anything about it.”

Mr Tovey said that the reform was “very useful” and he remained supportive of it.

“It’s just the delays. I’m sure they can do something about that over time, but it’s just waiting for that to happen, and I wish that could be addressed sooner rather than later,” he added.

“It does put pressure on other people, it’s not just ourselves, it’s pressure on the hospitals, on crematoria, on the registrar service and everyone else involved in our profession.

“But of course all of us we’re there to serve the families, and we’re just upset for them and wish we could do more to help.”

The National Association of Funeral Directors said some areas of England and Wales are experiencing much shorter delays than others, but has called for “urgent action”.

Rachel Bradburne, its director of external affairs, said the system was “introduced for all the right reasons” but that it was “not working as well as we need it to”.

“Funeral directors are relaying stories of delays, frustration, and bottlenecks on a daily basis, and urgent action is required to review and recalibrate the new system,” she added.

‘Unintended consequences’

Dr Roger Greene is the deputy chief executive of bereavement charity AtALoss.

He told Sky News that the delays were “one of the unintended consequences of what’s a well-intended reform of a system”.

“What has actually happened is that the number of deaths now requiring independent scrutiny has trebled,” he said.

“So in England and Wales in 2023, the last full year of data, there were nearly 200,000 deaths reported to a coroner, whereas there were 600,000 deaths.

“Now, what is the change in the process is that all deaths now need to be reported for independent scrutiny.”

Dr Greene said there may be ways the system could be “tweaked a little bit”, such as giving medical examiners the ability to issue an interim death certificate.

“We believe that people can process grief well if they’re given the opportunity and they’ve got a proper understanding,” he added.

“But the systems that we have in the country need to be able to work as well with that diversity of faith and culture.”

‘Vital improvements’

Jason Shannon, lead medical examiner for Wales, told Sky News he recognised “the importance of a seamless, accurate and timely death certification process”.

“Medical examiners are one part of the wider death certification process and were introduced to give additional independent safeguards as well as to give bereaved people a voice, which they hadn’t had before,” he added.

“Medical examiners have no role in determining where the body of a family’s relative is cared for and except in a minority of deaths where a coroner needs to be involved, that decision should be one that a family is fully empowered to make in a way that is best for them.”

A Welsh government spokesperson said they “would like to apologise to any families who have experienced delays in receiving death certificates”.

The government said it was working with the lead medical examiner and the NHS in Wales “to understand where the delays are” and how to provide bereaved families with “additional support”.

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A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said it recognised there were “some regional variations in how long it takes to register a death”.

They added that the changes to the death certification process “support vital improvements to patient safety and aim to provide comfort and clarity to the bereaved”.

Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.

More than 5,800 teachers were polled as part of the survey by the NASUWT teaching union, and nearly three in five (59%) of teachers said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.

The findings have been published during the union’s annual conference, which is taking place in Liverpool this weekend.

One motion that is set to be debated at the conference calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.

Andrew Tate was referenced by a number of teachers who took part in the survey, who said he had negative influence on male pupils.

One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”.

Another teacher said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils at an all-boys school] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine'”.

While another respondent to the survey said their school had experienced some incidents of “derogatory language towards female staff…as a direct result of Andrew Tate videos”.

Last month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hosted a discussion in Downing Street on how to prevent young boys from being dragged into a “whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”.

The talks were with the creators of Netflix drama Adolescence, which explored so-called incel culture.

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‘An urgent need for action’

Patrick Roach, the union’s general secretary, said “misogyny, racism and other forms of prejudice and hatred…are not a recent phenomenon”.

He said teachers “cannot be left alone to deal with these problems” and that a “multi-agency response” was needed.

“There is an urgent need for concerted action involving schools, colleges and other agencies to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists,” Mr Roach added.

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A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.

“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”