Senator heads to El Salvador to find Maryland migrant deported erroneously by Trump
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is in El Salvador to get answers about the wrongful deportation of a Maryland migrant by President Donald Trump's administration, he said in a video before boarding a flight on Wednesday.
The Democratic senator said he had been planning the trip for the last few days and that he hopes to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in person and see his condition.
Abrego Garcia, who reportedly fled political persecution from El Salvador and was deported last month by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement following an "administrative error," remains in the CECOT prison despite court orders requesting the U.S. government "facilitate" bringing him back 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," Van Hollen said in a video.
He posted another video after he landed and said he was on his way to meet with members of the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador.
Van Hollen told reporters later in the afternoon that he wasn't able to speak with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele but did speak with the vice president. The senator asked why Abrego Garcia has been held at CECOT despite no criminal charges.
"His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT," Van Hollen said.
"I'm asking President Bukele under his authority as president of El Salvador to do the right thing and allow Mr. Abrego Garcia to walk out of a prison, a man who is charged with no crime, convicted with no crime and was illegally abducted from the United States," the senator said.
He added that he did not speak with Abrego Garcia or enter CECOT. Republican Congress members have taken tours of the facility in the last few weeks and have posted pictures from the inside on social media.
"I don't know about his health status -- that's why I wanted to meet with him directly," Von Hollen said.
Later in the evening, Van Hollen posted another video update on social media, explaining that he's had "back-to-back meetings" in the country -- with members of humans rights groups and the U.S. Embassy.
"And the entire purpose has been to bring Abrego Garcia home," the senator said.
Van Hollen also said that he called on the government of El Salvador to provide evidence that Abrego Garcia was involved in MS-13 -- they could not.
"They said they had no evidence," he said.
"So this is not about MS-13. I know President Trump wants to make this about gang violence. I have been fighting MS-13, probably longer than Donald Trump even knew about MS- 13. I care about every victim of crime. That's why we have a court system to hold people accountable when they commit crimes, to make sure they get the punishment they deserve," Van Hollen continued.
In the end, the senator claimed that his trip was simply about letting Abrego Garcia "have his day in court."
"We use the courts to make sure that we don't convict people who are not guilty, and that we convict those who are," Van Hollen said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference later in the day and slammed the senator for "potentially using taxpayer dollars" to fly to El Salvador in an attempt to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. and repeated her allegations that the migrant was an MS-13 terrorist.
"It's appalling and sad that Sen. Van Hollen and the Democrats are plotting his trip to El Salvador today, are incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents and our citizens," she told reporters.
Attorney General Pam Bondi alleged Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member and was able to be deported because of Trump's executive orders on immigration. She added Wednesday morning during a press briefing that Abrego Garcia will not be returning to the U.S.
"He should not be in our country," Bondi said. "He was deported. They needed one additional step in paperwork, but now MS-13 is characterized as they should be as an FTO, as a foreign terrorist organization. So he is not coming back to our country."
"President Bukele said he was not sending him back," she added. "That's the end of the story."
The Department of Justice has not made that accusation in court papers and admitted the deportation was an error, and Bondi declined to answer a reporter's question about why the DOJ hasn't presented direct evidence of this. Abrego Garcia's family and attorneys have been fighting the deportation for weeks in court.
Van Hollen reiterated that none of these allegations were made in court and no charges related to the allegations have been issued.
Leavitt claimed Abrego Garcia was wearing clothing that had MS-13 symbols, but such allegations were not made in court and there has been no evidence backing up this claim. An arrest photo released by the federal government earlier in the day showed Abrego Garcia wearing what appeared to be a bright yellow construction shirt.
The press secretary invited Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was killed by an immigrant lacking legal status in 2023, to speak at the news conference. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 24, who was originally from El Salvador and accused of killing a woman in his home country, was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and kidnapping on Monday.
"To have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge or barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grandbaby without a grandmother so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen, why does that person have more right than I do for my daughter, for my grandchildren?" she said.
The senator put out a statement after Martinez-Hernadez's conviction saying, "This verdict brings a measure of justice that they so deserve. I'm grateful to the law enforcement officers who brought her killer into custody and for our legal process for delivering this justice."
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that the Abrego Garcia, 29, who had no criminal record in the U.S., was illegally deported. However, Bondi has claimed El Salvador's government is not giving him up.
In an interview with Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night from San Salvador, Van Hollen said that U.S. Embassy officials told him they haven't been ordered by the administration to do anything to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return.
"I asked the folks at the embassy whether they've been ordered by the administration to do anything to facilitate his return. The answer was no," he said. "So they're clearly not in compliance."
"It is pretty clear that the Trump administration has not lifted a finger to implement that court order. And so I think it's important that the courts know that -- and they will know that," he told Maddow.
The senator said on social media that he would "continue pressing" to secure Abrego Garcia's release.
ABC News' Alexander Mallin and Meghan Mistry contributed to this report.
