During the first day of his trip to El Salvador, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen was denied a meeting or phone call with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to that country. Van Hollen was able to meet with the vice president of El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s case has sparked a series of court proceedings, during which a federal judge ordered the government to return him to the U.S. from the El Salvador supermax prison, CECOT.
The Trump administration raised the case to the Supreme Court, which also ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to check on Abrego Garcia’s well-being and to meet with Salvadoran government leaders after promising Abrego Garcia’s family that he would try to aid in his release.
Maryland senator hopes to see Abrego Garcia
Sen. Van Hollen said he hoped to meet with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. Instead, he met with Vice President Félix Ulloa on Wednesday. During that meeting, Van Hollen said that Ulloa indicated he would need a little more time to arrange an in-person prison meeting between Abrego Garcia and the senator.
However, when the senator offered to return next week, he said Ulloa told him he could not promise a meeting would happen at all. Van Hollen was also denied a phone call with Abrego Garcia. Ulloa suggested that the requests be handled by the U.S. Embassy instead.
“We have an unjust situation here,” Van Hollen said during a livestreamed news conference. “The Trump administration is lying about Abrego Garcia. The American courts have looked at the facts.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation
During his update, Sen. Van Hollen emphasized that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported, as he had been granted a “withholding of removal” order from an immigration judge.
“Abrego Garcia is legally in the U.S.,” Van Hollen said. “An immigration judge found years ago that it would put his life in danger if he was returned to El Salvador.”
Abrego Garcia was arrested by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) in March as he was leaving his job in Baltimore, Maryland and returning home to Prince George’s County. On March 15, he was deported to El Salvador on a plane with more than 200 other migrants that the Trump administration claims had gang affiliations.
ICE later admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported because of an “administrative error,” however, they did not take action to return him to the U.S.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to MS-13
The Trump administration has said that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, a claim his attorney and family deny. He also has no criminal history in any country.
“The case of Abrego Garcia does not have to do with MS-13,” Sen. Van Hollen said. “If you listen to President Trump and the Trump administration, you would think that U.S. courts have found that Mr. Abrego Garcia is part of MS-13, but they have not found that. In fact, recently, a U.S. federal court judge said that the Trump administration did not have evidence to support the claim that he had ever been part of MS-13.”
Why can’t El Salvador return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.?
During his update in El Salvador, Sen. Van Hollen questioned why Abrego Garcia is still being held at CECOT and asked if the government has any evidence of Abrego Garcia’s gang ties.
“The government of El Salvador has no evidence that he is part of MS-13, so why is El Salvador continuing to hold him in CECOT?” the senator questioned.
According to Van Hollen, the vice president said the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to keep Abrego Garcia at CECOT.
When asked again why El Salvador could not release Abrego Garcia, Vice President Ulloa referred to a statement that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele gave while visiting the White House, saying the country cannot smuggle Abrego Garcia back into the U.S.
