San Salvador (AP) – the Senator of Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday and met with the vice president of the country to drive the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March, despite an immigration court that prevented his deportation.
Van Hollen said at a press conference in San Salvador, Vice President Félix Ulloa, said his government could not return Abbaro Garcia to the USA and rejected Van Hollen to visit him in the notorious gang prison in which he was held.
“Why is the government of El Salvador still detained a man in whom you have no evidence that he has committed a crime and has not presented any evidence from the United States that he committed crimes?” Van Hollen told reporters after the meeting. “You should just let him go.”
Van Hollens trip became a flashpoint in the USA.
President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they had no basis to send him back, even when the US Supreme Court asked the government to make his return easier.
Trump officials said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen living in Maryland, had connections to the MS-13 gang, but his lawyers said that the government had not submitted any evidence of this and Abrego Garcia had never been charged with such activities.
“We have an unjust situation here,” said Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Committee. “The Trump government lies over Abrego Garcia. The American dishes have looked at the facts.”
Trump’s officials repeated on Wednesday that he would not return to the United States. The press spokeswoman of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, held a press conference with the mother of a Maryland woman, Rachel Morin, which was killed in 2023 by a refugee from El Salvador.
“It is horrific and sad that Sen. van Hollen and the Democrats, who welcome his trip to El Salvador today, are unable to have common sense or empathy for their own voters and our citizens,” said Leavitt in the letter.
The Republicans have focused on the victims of crime who have illegally argued for Trump’s promised immigration and mass shifts from people in the United States.
The Democrats have now confiscated the case to highlight what they say, Trump’s disrespect for the courts and, as the basic voter, to fight for Trump’s politics. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Dn.J., also sees a trip to El Salvador, as well as some house democrats.
“This is a constitutional crisis,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., One of the Democrats who consider a journey. “This is not just about a deportation policy. This is about defying the constitution and the Supreme Court.”
Garcia sent a joint letter with Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., To James Comer, R-Ky., Chairman of the Chairman of the Supervisory Committee, asked and asked for a delegation of the congress to travel to El Salvador in order to examine the condition of Abrego Garcia. Garcia said that if the trip is not approved, some Democrats are still planning to travel to the Central American nation.
“We have to draw attention to this case. We have to be in El Salvador. We have to work with the family. We have to work with the Salvadoran government. We have to put the white house under pressure to do the right thing,” said Garcia.
MP Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that she wanted to travel to El Salvador to support the return of Abrego Garcia.
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran in which people have disappeared – I refuse to lean back and to see how it happens here,” wrote Ansari, the Iranian American and the youngest woman in the congress.
Trump officers renewed their claims that Abrego Garcia was a gang member.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border quota, said about Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that he “is” disgusted that every representative of the congress will run to El Salvador “.
“We got rid of a dangerous person, an El Salvadora member was brought back to the state of El Salvador, so he is at home,” said Homan.
Some Republicans also visited prison to support the efforts of the Trump government. MP Riley Moore, a Republican from West Virginia, published on Tuesday evening that he had visited the prison in which Abego Garcia was recorded. He did not mention Abrego Garcia, but said that the facility “houses the most brutal criminals in the country”.
“I have now left even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” wrote Moore on social media.
Republican MP Jason Smith from Missouri, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also attended prison. He wrote on X that “thanks to President Trump” the facility “now comprises illegal immigrants who broke into our country and have committed violent acts against Americans”.
The struggle for Abrego Garcia also took place in controversial court files, with repeated rejections by the government, to tell a judge what to do, if at all, to repatriate it. The Trump administration described its deportation as a mistake, but also essentially argued that his conclusion about Abego Garcia’s belonging makes it inadmissible to protect against the courts.
Since March, El Salvador has assumed more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants from the United States who have accused Trump administrative officers of gang activity and violent crimes-and they were used in the maximum gang prison in the country outside of San Salvador in the maximum second. This prison is part of the broader efforts of Bukele to operate the powerful street gangs in the country, which brought 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Human rights groups have previously accused the government of Bukele of imprisoned those who were subjected to “systematic use of torture and other abuse”. Officials there deny misconduct.
After his meeting, van Hollen said that Abrego Garcia “illegally kidnapped the United States and did not commit a crime”.
“I will continue to press here in my remaining time and continue to press,” said Van Hollen.
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Jalonick and Brown reported from Washington. Associated Press Writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
