A Maryland senator tried to visit his wrongfully deported constituent in El Salvador

Sen. Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador this week to try to see and free his constituent Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose illegal deportation has sparked an uproar and an escalating legal battle in the U.S. But the Maryland Democrat said El Salvador’s government declined his requests for both.

Abrego Garcia, 29, is a Salvadoran citizen who lived and worked legally in Maryland for about 15 years before he was wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador last month — despite the fact that he was granted protections by a judge years earlier over concerns for his safety if he were to return there.

The Supreme Court has since ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., an order it has so far ignored. And at a White House meeting on Monday, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, declined to return him, calling the suggestion “preposterous.”

The situation galvanized Van Hollen, to personally campaign for — and try to visit — Abrego Garcia, who is being held in a notorious mega-prison known as CECOT.

“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 from the airport. “We are going to keep fighting because this is a miscarriage of justice.”

The U.S. has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the transnational criminal gang MS-13, which the Trump administration designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers dispute that he is a member of the gang, and say he doesn’t have a criminal record.

After meeting with El Salvador’s vice president, Félix Ulloa, Van Hollen told reporters on Wednesday that El Salvador’s government doesn’t have evidence that Abrego Garcia was involved in the gang. He said Ulloa told him that Abrego Garcia remains in custody because “the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT.”

Van Hollen said while he wanted to see Abrego Garcia in person and report back to his family, Ulloa told him he would have needed to make earlier arrangements to visit the facility.

“I said, ‘I’m not interested in this moment in taking a tour of CECOT. I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia,’ ” Van Hollen said. “He said he needed a little bit more time. I asked him if I came back next week whether I’d be able to see Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said he couldn’t promise that either.”

Van Hollen said Ulloa could not arrange a phone or video call with Abrego Garcia, but told him the American embassy might be able to. He said he plans to ask the embassy to do so, as he continues the fight for Abrego Garcia’s return.

“I can assure the president and vice president that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more, and there will be more members of congress coming,” Van Hollen said.

White House slams Van Hollen’s visit

On the same day Van Hollen lobbied El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., the White House doubled down on its case against him.

“If he ever ends up back in the United States he would immediately be deported again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said from the podium. “Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never be a Maryland father, he will never live in the United States of America again.”

She accused Van Hollen of “potentially using taxpayer dollars” to fund his trip and slammed Democrats for supporting Abrego Garcia’s release instead of efforts to improve border security, which she said would make Americans safer.

Leavitt was joined at the press briefing by Maryland resident Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was raped and murdered in 2023 by a fugitive from El Salvador, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, who was convicted of the crime on Monday. Morin also spoke critically of Van Hollen.

“To have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge, or barely acknowledge, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother … so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen?” she said.

Van Hollen’s office released a statement about the conviction in the case on Monday, thanking those who made the verdict possible. He said the country can improve public safety and border security “while also supporting our immigrant communities and respecting the rights of individuals who are here legally.”

Other lawmakers are mulling El Salvador visits 

Van Hollen isn’t the only member of Congress to visit El Salvador recently.

Two Republicans, West Virginia Rep. Riley Moore and Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, posted photos to social media of themselves touring CECOT on Tuesday. They each spoke highly of Trump’s deportation agenda, with Moore saying he leaves “even more determined” to support the president’s efforts.

“It is unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country,” Smith tweeted.

Several House Democrats also hope to make the same trip — and the opposite argument.

In two separate letters this week, Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois, asked the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., to authorize a Congressional Member Delegation to visit CECOT.

Garcia and Frost wrote that a “Congressional delegation would allow Committee Members to conduct a welfare check on Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as others held at CECOT.”

“In addition, congressional oversight is warranted following President Trump’s recent remarks in which he expressed a desire to send ‘homegrown criminals’ — including U.S. citizens — to this facility,” they said, adding that they would gladly include Republicans on their trip and are prepared to leave as soon as possible.