The government of El Salvador prevented Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Wednesday from visiting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia during a trip to the Central American country after the Maryland man was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration.
Van Hollen’s attempts to visit Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national previously living in Maryland, and make contact via phone while he’s being held at the country’s notorious high-security prison for terrorists known as CECOT were rebuffed by Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa, according to the senator.
The episode marked an escalation in the immigration case that’s become a flashpoint in U.S. politics after the Trump administration conceded Abrego Garcia was deported in “administrative error” but has rebuffed court orders to “facilitate” his return, including from the Supreme Court.
“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, speaking to reporters in El Salvador, recalled from his meeting with Ulloa. “So, I asked him if I could get on the phone, either video phone or just a phone, and talk to Mr. Abrego Garcia so I could just ask him how he’s doing, so I could report back to his family. He said he could not arrange that. He said maybe, if the American Embassy were to ask, maybe that could happen.”
Van Hollen said he would request the U.S. Embassy to arrange contact, adding that the embassy previously informed him that “they’ve received no direction from the Trump administration to help facilitate his release.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who said during an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump this week that he’s unable to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. or release him within El Salvador, was not present for the meeting because he was out of the country.
Van Hollen accused the Trump administration of “lying” about Abrego Garcia, whom the White House and top U.S. officials say is an MS-13 gang member despite a lack of evidence in court to substantiate such claims. Abrego Garcia has not been convicted or charged. In 2019, under Trump’s first term, he was granted a “withholding of removal” status by a Maryland judge and allowed to legally work and live in the U.S.
Van Hollen described Abrego Garcia as having been “illegally abducted.” Ulloa was unable to produce evidence of Abrego Garcia committing a crime or being part of MS-13 and said the U.S. was paying El Salvador to prevent his release, according to Van Hollen.
“His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT,” Van Hollen said.
Democrats, including Van Hollen, say the blame lies with the Trump administration rather than El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s continued holding.
Republicans and the White House unleashed on Van Hollen Wednesday for his trip, saying he and Democrats were more concerned by migrants in the U.S. illegally than American citizens.
“Where was his concern for Maryland constituents put at risk by the many other illegal immigrants allowed to roam free until now?” the White House said in a press release.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said Van Hollen’s effort “tells you all you need to know about Democrat priorities.”
“If he ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a White House press briefing Wednesday. “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.”
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Patti Morin, whose daughter, Rachel Morin of Maryland, was murdered in 2023 by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally, told reporters Wednesday during the briefing that there should be no ambiguity as to why Abrego Garcia should not be allowed to return.
“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 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,” Patty Morin said. “Why does that person have more rights than I do or my daughter?”