WASHINGTON (AP) — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador Wednesday to push for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a video posted to X before he boarded his flight that he hopes to meet with Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland. He said he also hopes to meet with high-level officials to press for his return to the United States.
“The goal of this mission is to let the Trump administration, to let the government of El Salvador know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home until he returns to his family,” Van Hollen said.
After arriving in San Salvador, Van Hollen posted another video from the back of a moving car, saying he was traveling into the city and planned to meet with officials at the U.S. embassy. He said he would “have a better idea” later in the day whether he can meet with Abrego Garcia, who is detained at the notorious CECOT prison.
The Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send him back, even as even as the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys note the government has provided no evidence of that.
Democrats have seized on the case to highlight what they say is President Donald Trump’s disrespect for the courts and overcome their position in the minority in both the House and Senate. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was also considering a trip to El Salvador, as were some House Democrats.
“I told his wife and his family that I would do everything possible to bring him home, and we’re going to keep working at this until we’re successful,” Van Hollen said in his video.
Trump officials slammed the Democratic senator’s trip and renewed their claims that he was a gang member.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said on Fox News that he is “disgusted that any congressional representative is going to run to El Salvador.”
“We got rid of a dangerous person, an El Salvadoran national was returned to the country of El Salvador, so he is home,” Homan said.
The fight over Abrego Garcia has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the U.S. more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside of San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Human rights groups have previously accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment.” Officials there deny wrongdoing.
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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
