On Thursday, Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with a recently deported illegal alien that the Trump administration claims is connected to a violent gang.
“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” the senator captioned over a picture featuring him and the man he said is the illegal alien, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. “Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”
The picture depicts Abrego Garcia and Van Hollen sharing drinks and conversation. Van Hollen took the trip to El Salvador to lobby for the release of Abrego Garcia, who he said is his constituent in Maryland and has been unlawfully deported.
Abrego Garcia, whom the United States removed partially on the grounds that he was allegedly a member of the violent gang MS-13, will stay in El Salvador’s custody following the meeting, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said in a Thursday night post on X.
“Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” Bukele said.“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”
Abrego Garcia was shipped by the administration to a maximum-security prison, CECOT, in El Salvador, which is notorious for its brutality and torture tactics.
As of Wednesday, Van Hollen had been unable to meet with Abrego Garcia. Van Hollen first met with Vice President Félix Ulloa, who told him a meeting with the prisoner would be unlikely. Van Hollen was also refused the opportunity to talk with Abrego Garcia on the phone and was directed to the U.S. Embassy to coordinate possible communication.
In protest of the Trump administration’s decision to deport Abrego Garcia, some Senate Democrats, such as Van Hollen, have allegedly planned trips to El Salvador to petition for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. They argue that there is a lack of evidence that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, another international criminal enterprise that the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
“President Trump and our attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the vice president of the United States are lying when they say that Abrego García has been charged with a crime or is part of MS-13,” Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador on Wednesday. “That is a lie.”
It was recently uncovered that Abrego Garcia was accused in the past of beating his wife years before his deportation. Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a Salvadoran national, petitioned for an order of protection against Abrego Garcia in May 2021, according to Maryland court documents first reported by journalist Andy Ngo. She also filed for an order in 2020. Vasquez Sura claimed he punched, scratched, grabbed, and bruised her, according to court documents. The two domestic violence cases she filed against him contradict the rosy picture some media outlets have painted of Abrego Garcia as a Maryland family man.
However, she’s now asking for his swift return to the United States from the El Salvador facility. She seemed overjoyed about the meeting with the senator in a statement.
“My children and my prayers have been answered,” she said. “The efforts of my family and community in fighting for justice are (being) heard, because I now know that my husband is alive. God is listening, and the community is standing strong.
Abrego Garcia was removed from the United States along with alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members from Venezuela, who were deported to a Salvadoran prison last month. The administration invoked the Alien Enemy Act as justification to deport the Venezuelans. In Garcia’s case, the government claimed that he was a member of MS-13.
Critics of Abrego Garcia’s removal argue that his case should be processed in the U.S. because a judge had ruled that, in connection with 2019 proceedings over his time-barred asylum claim, he couldn’t be sent to El Salvador. The Trump administration sent him to El Salvador anyway, to the most notorious prison in the Western Hemisphere, the so-called Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT. Van Hollen reiterated Wednesday that Abrego Garcia was legally residing in the U.S because “an immigration judge found years ago that it would put his life in danger if he was returned to El Salvador.”
Van Hollen first attempted to access CECOT Wednesday with Chris Newman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia’s wife and mother. They were turned away at a checkpoint, he said.
“El Salvador is a party to the international covenant on civil and political rights,” he told reporters, according to CNN. “El Salvador has signed and ratified that covenant. And that covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel.’”