US Sen. Chris Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador Wednesday that he was unable to visit Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in the maximum-security mega-prison where he is being held.
Instead, the Democrat announced he met with the Salvadoran vice president and vowed to “keep pressing” for answers and the man’s release.
“There will be more members of Congress coming,” Van Hollen said in an emotional media availability. “This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, so it cannot continue.”
The March deportation of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, has become a flashpoint in the fight over the Trump administration’s hardline deportation push. The administration conceded in court filings that it had mistakenly deported the father of three to El Salvador last month as part of its recent deportation flights to the Central American nation, which are now at the center of a fraught legal battle.
Van Hollen said he specifically asked Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa if he could meet with Abrego Garcia or at least speak with him over the phone or via video conferencing. Again, Van Hollen said the request was denied.
Pressed on whether he had concerns about the man’s health, Van Hollen said: “I don’t know about his health status which is why I wanted to meet with him directly.”
The senator’s trip swiftly drew the ire of the White House.
Communications director Steven Cheung called Van Hollen “a complete disgrace” and the Office of Communications accused the senator in a statement of a lack of concern regarding crimes they say were committed by undocumented immigrants against his constituents. Abrego Garcia has not been charged with any crimes in the United States, according to his lawyers.
While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador and the Trump administration admitted in court documents he was deported there due to a clerical error.
In recent days, however, Trump administration officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported. US officials have alleged he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization – a claim his attorneys dispute and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward.
The Wednesday meeting, Van Hollen said, started with a “point of agreement” that the countries should work together to “crack down” on gangs like MS-13. However, he said the case of Abrego Garcia “does not have to do with MS-13.”
Despite a Supreme Court ruling that the US must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, White House officials have argued it’s up to El Salvador whether to do so. The Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele made clear during an Oval Office meeting earlier this week that the Maryland man wouldn’t be returned to the US.
Bukele said during the meeting that while he has the power to release Abrego Garcia, he wasn’t willing to do so.
Officials in the Oval Office meeting, including President Donald Trump, made no effort to ask for his cooperation in the matter.
Van Hollen said Wednesday that the Salvadoran vice president had echoed comments made by Bukele at the White House that El Salvador “can’t smuggle” Abrego Garcia to the US.
“I said I am not asking him to smuggle Mr. Abrego Garcia into the United States, I am simply asking him to open the door of CECOT and let this innocent man walk out,” the senator said.
