White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for flying to El Salvador to meet with deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, adding how the senator “wasted Easter Sunday” giving interviews about their meeting.
Van Hollen went to El Salvador last week to visit the Salvadoran immigrant outside of the country’s terrorism confinement center, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, referred to as CECOT. The senator said the “main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” and he spoke with Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, about his condition.
“They should know the truth about this man. He is an illegal alien, a foreign terrorist and a criminal MS-13 gang member who violated our country’s laws by coming here in the first place,” Leavitt said of Abrego Garcia on Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Monday. “Shame on Sen. Chris Van Hollen and the entire Democrat Party who wasted Easter Sunday going on every television show in the country to advocate for the return of illegal criminal gang member.”
Democratic lawmakers have disputed Abrego Garcia’s gang affiliation. Leavitt pointed out that two different courts, along with the testimonies of immigration officials, found Abrego Garcia to be an MS-13 member. The Salvadorian was arrested in 2019 along with two other confirmed members of MS-13. He was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat in 2019, a common gang uniform, and photographed with tattoos on his hand that are associated to the gang.
“I would add that the overwhelming majority of Americans continue to support deportation of criminals,” Leavitt said. “So, the president will continue to do that while Democrats trip over themselves while ignoring American citizens whose lives have been forever impacted by the actions and the crimes of these illegal criminals, like Patty Morin.”
Patty Morin is the mother of Rachel Morin, who was murdered last year. A Maryland jury convicted Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, an illegal immigrant, of her murder. Her mother claimed that Van Hollen hasn’t ever bothered to call her since the death of her daughter.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele committed to keeping Abrego Garcia, as the Trump administration classified him as a member of MS-13. This is a fact that even Van Hollen avoided disputing.
The senator has continued to defend his trip, which was funded by taxpayer dollars. Abrego Garcia has since been moved to another undisclosed prison.
“Trump’s cronies said we ‘wasted Easter Sunday’ in discussing Mr. Abrego Garcia & their violation of his constitutional rights,” Van Hollen wrote on X on Monday. “We were in good company w/ Pope Francis, who on Easter decried ‘contempt’ for immigrants & has called on them to do better.”
FOUR HOUSE DEMOCRATS FLY TO EL SALVADOR TO VISIT ABREGO GARCIA
Pope Francis died early Monday of a cerebral stroke that put him in a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.
In the months leading up to his death, Francis named Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the archbishop over Washington, D.C., on the anniversary of Jan. 6. This was also notably days before Trump was inaugurated. McElroy, 70, was previously the outspoken bishop from San Diego who criticized Trump’s deportation plans since his first term.