US senator met wrongly deported Salvadoran man at hotel, calls for release
by Daniel Trotta and Kanishka Singh reuters · KSL.comEstimated read time: 4-5 minutes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen met Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported Salvadoran, in El Salvador.
- Van Hollen on Friday criticized Trump administration for defying Supreme Court and called for Garcia's release.
- Garcia, accused of gang ties, remains detained despite lack of charges, raising constitutional concerns.
WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and being held in a prison in El Salvador, at a hotel after initial requests to meet with him were denied.
Van Hollen, who represents the state of Maryland, said Abrego Garcia was brought to his hotel before Van Hollen left the country on Thursday, and after the senator attempted to go to the notorious CECOT prison for gang members, where Abrego Garcia had been held.
The senator told reporters at a press conference at the Washington, D.C., area Dulles Airport that he and the lawyer for Abrego Garcia's family were pulled over by soldiers and told they were not allowed to proceed any further.
Later in the afternoon, El Salvadoran officials brought Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland, to the hotel where Van Hollen had been staying.
The case has pitted a defiant Trump administration against the courts, including the Supreme Court, and fanned the prospect of a constitutional conflict after Washington acknowledged he was deported because of an administrative error.
"He said he was traumatized by being at CECOT," Van Hollen said he was told by Abrego Garcia.
The senator on Thursday had posted on X an image of himself in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia, dressed in a collared shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. Abrego Garcia told the senator that eight days ago, he was moved to another detention center in Santa Ana, two hours north of CECOT, where conditions were better but he still was unable to make contact with the outside world.
Van Hollen said that the Trump administration, which has refused to adhere to a Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, and El Salvador's government need to be held accountable for being complicit in illegally holding him.
"This case is not only about one man, as important as that is. It is about protecting fundamental freedoms and the fundamental principle in the Constitution for due process that protects everybody who resides in America," he said.
In a statement apart from the ruling, liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the government had cited no basis for what she called Abrego Garcia's "warrantless arrest," nor for his deportation or imprisonment in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers say he has never been charged with, nor convicted of, any crime, and deny the Justice Department's accusation that he belongs to the criminal gang MS-13.
But the government has given no indication it plans to seek his return and said it had no authority to release a man from a foreign prison, raising the potential for a constitutional conflict should Trump defy the highest court.
In a statement after the meeting, White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai repeated the unproven accusation that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13.
"Chris Van Hollen has firmly established Democrats as the party whose top priority is the welfare of an illegal alien MS-13 terrorist," Desai said. "It is truly disgusting. President Trump will continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans."
Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told CNN the man belonged in prison, despite the Supreme Court directive.
"He's a citizen of El Salvador and he's in El Salvador. He's home," Homan said. "I think we did the right thing, I think he is where he should be. Even if he came back ... he's going to be detained and he's going to be removed as per the order of removal."
Along with Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration has deported to El Salvador hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, whom it says are gang members, under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, without presenting evidence and without a trial.
A U.S. district judge, James Boasberg, has already threatened administration officials with criminal contempt charges over the deportations.
Boasberg said the administration demonstrated "willful disregard" for his March 15 order barring the deportations to El Salvador under the 1798 act.
Salvadoran officials have also shown no interest in releasing Abrego Garcia.
During a meeting with Trump at the White House on Monday, El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, said he had no plans to return Abrego Garcia.
Bukele also posted pictures of the encounter with Van Hollen on social media, followed by a post saying he would remain in the custody of the Central American.
"Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody," Bukele said.
Van Hollen, the U.S. senator from Maryland, where Abrego Garcia lived, arrived on Wednesday in El Salvador to meet senior officials and advocate for his release. However, Vice President Felix Ulloa told him he could not authorize a visit or a telephone call with Abrego Garcia.
It was not immediately clear what changed to allow the senator's access.
Abrego Garcia, 29, left El Salvador at age 16 to escape gang-related violence, his lawyers said, and received a protective order in 2019 to continue living in the United States.
Contributing: Valerie Volcovici and Ismail Shakil
Photos
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.