Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the deportation of gang members to El Salvador during a Senate hearing Tuesday, telling Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) that “the one you had a margarita with” is a “human trafficker” and a “gangbanger.”
Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he was grilled about cuts to foreign aid, as well as President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and his deportation policies.
Sen. Van Hollen assailed the secretary with a long diatribe about how disappointed he was in his performance so far.
“We didn’t always agree, but I believe we shared some common values, a belief in defending democracy and human rights abroad and honoring the Constitution at home. That’s why I voted to confirm you. I believed you would stand up for those principles. You haven’t. You’ve done the opposite,” the senator said.
“Then you stood by while Elon Musk took a chainsaw to USAID and other assistance programs. That has left a staggering toll, broken trust with countries, openings for China and other adversaries, and countless preventable deaths of children and others,” the senator continued bitterly.
Van Hollen went on to blast Rubio not returning illegal alien Abrego Garcia back to the United States after the Supreme Court ruled that the administration should “facilitate his return.”
Despite abundant evidence that Garcia, 29, is a violent MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and wife beater, congressional Democrats last month launched a media blitz to have him returned to the United States after his disputed deportation. Van Hollen himself traveled to El Salvador to meet with the accused gangbanger in El Salvador’s notorious megaprison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
After being denied access multiple times, the senator was finally granted a meeting with Abrego Garcia on April 17. Van Hollen posted a now viral photo of himself sitting at a table with Garcia set with various beverages.
“I have to tell you, directly and personally, that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State,” Van Hollen stated.
Rubio responded: “First of all your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job.”
The secretary then asked for a chance to respond to Van Hollen’s diatribe, saying “much of it’s untrue.”
“First of all, I’m actually very proud of the work we’ve done with USAID. For example, I don’t regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique,” Rubio said, adding that he didn’t know “how that makes us stronger or more prosperous as a nation.”
Van Hollen interrupted before Rubio could continue reading from a prepared list of outrageous USAID boondoggles, prompting Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Id.) to ask the senator to “please suspend.”
“You had seven straight minutes,” Risch told his colleague.
Rubio continued: “I can go on. There’s other things here. We spent $220,000 for ‘Big Cat’s’ YouTube channel. We spent $14 million for social cohesion in Mali, whatever the hell that means.”
The secretary said he could keep going on and on, but in order to save time, he moved on to the Abrego Garcia case.
“In the case of El Salvador—absolutely! Absolutely, we deported gang members—including the one you had a margarita with—and that guy is a human trafficker and that guy is a gang banger and the evidence is going to be clear,” Rubio declared.
Van Hollen again interrupted, saying: “Mr. Chairman, he can’t make unsubstantiated claims like that!”
“Secretary Rubio has the floor,” Risch shot back.
“Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to a federal court of the United States because he hasn’t done it under oath!” Van Hollen railed.
“Here’s another point,” Rubio continued, undeterred. “There is a division within our government between the federal branch and the Judicial branch. No judge—the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy,” he declared. “No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner what I have to say to them. And if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I’m under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch.”
Rubio said it would be “counterproductive” if judges were allowed to direct how he conducts diplomacy, forcing him to share his private conversations with foreign leaders in court and in the media.
“No foreign leader would talk to me again,” Rubio explained.
The secretary also vowed to continue stripping student Visas from campus radicals and deporting them for activities deemed counter to U.S. foreign policy interests.
“It’s very simple. A visa is not a right—it’s a privilege,” Rubio said.
“Give me a break, Mr. Secretary. You know as well as I do this isn’t about national security. It’s about punishing free speech,” Van Hollen snapped.
Rubio responded that the students being targeted came to “lead campus crusades, to take over libraries and try to burn down buildings and acts of violence.”
Van Hollen brought up the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in Massachusetts who was arrested after writing an opinion piece in a student newspaper criticizing the campus position on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. A judge ordered her release from a detention facility in Louisiana earlier this month.
Rubio said that the facts are different in all of the cases, but the bottom line is “if you come here to stir up trouble on our college campuses, we will deny you a visa. ”
He continued, as Van Hollen tried to talk over him.
“We’re going to do more! There are more coming. We’re going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities,” the secretary said. “These kids pay money to go to school and they have to walk through a bunch of lunatics who are hear on student visas.”
Van Hollen responded that the administration’s treatment of Ozturk was “pathetic.”
Undeterred, Rubio continued to defend the policy, noting that after a recent university riot, he demanded to see the arrest records of all the people who were arrested “because if any of them have a visa, we’re going to revoke them.”
The Senate voted 99-0 to confirm Rubio as Secretary of State on January 20, with Democrats joining Republicans in giving President Trump his first permanent cabinet member just hours after being sworn in.