San Salvador – Maryland’s senator Chris Van Hollen, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday and met with the vice president of the country to boost the release of Kilmar Abrego Garciaa man who was sent there by him Trump administration in March despite an order of the immigration court that prevents deportation.
Van Hollen said at a press conference in San Salvador that Vice President Félix Ulloa said his government could not return Abrego García to the United States and refused to allow Van Hollen to visit him in the Notorious gang prison where he is being retained.
“Why does the Government of El Salvador continue to imprison a man where he has no evidence that he has committed any crime and that they have not provided any evidence from the United States that he has committed any crime?” Van Hollen told journalists after the meeting. “They should let it go.”
Van Hollen’s trip became a point of inflammation in the United States, the Trump administration criticized him sharply, while the Democrats have recovered around Abrego García.
President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele He said this week They have no basis to send it back, even when the United States Supreme Court has asked the Administration to facilitate your return.
Trump officials have said that Abrego García, a Salvadoran citizen who lived in Maryland, has links with the MS-13 gang, but his lawyers say that the government has not provided evidence of that and that Abrego García has never been accused of any crime related to said activity.
“We have an unfair situation here,” said Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The Trump administration is lying on Abrego García. The US courts have analyzed the facts.”
Trump’s officials reiterated on Wednesday that it would not be returned to the United States. The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, held a press conference with the mother of a Maryland woman, Rachel Morin, who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.
“It is frightening and sad that Senator Van Hollen and the Democrats applaud his trip to El Salvador today is unable to have some pinch of common sense or empathy for his own voters and our citizens,” Leavitt said in the informative session.
Republicans have focused on crimes victims committed by people in the United States illegally by arguing for Trump’s promising immigration repression and mass deportations.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have taken over the case to highlight what Trump’s disrespect for the courts is and, like the base voters, encouraged them to fight more against Trump’s policies. Sen. New Jersey. Cory BookerDn.J., is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as well as some Chamber Democrats.
“This is a constitutional crisis,” said representative Robert García, D-Calif., One of the Democrats who is considering a trip. “It is not just a deportation policy. It is about challenging the Constitution and the Supreme Court.”
Garcia sent a joint letter with the representative Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., To the President of the Chamber’s Supervision Committee, James Eat, R-Ky., Requesting a Delegation of the Congress to travel to El Salvador to investigate the condition of Abrego García. Garcia said that if the trip is not approved, some Democrats still plan to travel to the Central American nation.
“We need to get attention to this case. We need to be in El Salvador. We need to work with the family. We need to work with the Salvadoran government. We need to press the White House to do the right thing,” Garcia said.
Representative Yassamin Ansari, a Arizona Democrat, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that he plans to travel to El Salvador to support the return of Abrego García.
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran, where people ‘disappeared’: I refuse to sit and see what also happens here,” Ansari wrote, who is American Iranian and the youngest woman in Congress.
Trump’s officials renewed their statements that Abrego García was a member of a gang.
Tom homanTrump’s border tsar, he said in Fox News “Fox” Fox AND Friends “who is” upset that any representative of the Congress will run to El Salvador. ”
“We got rid of a dangerous person, a citizen of El Salvadora was returned to the country of El Salvador, so he is at home,” said Homan.
Some Republicans have also visited the prison in support of the efforts of the Trump administration. Representative Riley Moore, a Republican of Western Virginia, published Tuesday night that he had visited the prison where Abrego García is located. He did not mention Abrego García, but said the installation “houses the most brutal criminals in the country.”
“Now I am even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to ensure our homeland,” Moore wrote about social networks.
Republican representative Jason Smith of Missouri, president of the Media and Media Committee of the Chamber, also visited the prison. He published in X that “thanks to President Trump”, the installation “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans.”
The fight over Abrego García has also developed in contentious documents, with Repeated rejections of the government to tell a judge what to do, if there is something, to repatriate it. The Trump Administration has called for its deportation an error, but has also argued, essentially, that its conclusion about the affiliation of Abrego García makes it inevable for the protection of the courts.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the United States More than 200 Venezuelan immigrants – To whom Trump administration officials have accused of violent gang activity and crimes, and placed them inside the country Maximum security gang prison Just outside San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to take energetic measures In the powerful street gangs of the countrywhich has put 84,000 people behind bars and has made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Human Rights Groups have accused Bukele’s government to submit those imprisoned to “systematic use of torture and other abuse.” The officials deny cursed.
Van Hollen said after his meeting that Abrego García was “illegally kidnapped from the United States and did not commit crimes.”
“I will continue to press in my remaining time here and continue to press beyond that,” said Van Hollen.
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Jalonick and Brown reported from Washington. Associated Press Seung Min Kim writer contributed to this report.
