MD Senator Meets In El Salvador With Wrongly Deported MD Man

GREENBELT, MD — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met Thursday night with the Beltsville man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration last month, a day after El Salvador officials refused to allow him to meet with the man detained at a notorious gang prison.

Van Hollen, a Democrat, met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a hotel in San Salvador, photos shared by the senator's office and by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele showed, the New York Times reported.

Abrego Garcia has been held in El Salvador since March 15, when he was removed from the United States as part of President Donald Trump's sweeping deportation efforts. The Trump administration later admitted the married father's deportation was an "administrative error," and both a federal judge and the Supreme Court have since ordered he be returned to the United States.

Van Hollen had been denied a face-to-face visit on Wednesday with Abrego Garcia in the notorious gang prison where he is being held. Officials said Van Hollen should have provided more advance notice before visiting the country.

On Thursday night he tweeted: "I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. 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."

That return was without Abrego Garcia, however.

"Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody," Bukele said in a tweet that included additional photos of Van Hollen's meeting with Abrego Garcia.

The photos, showing Abrego Garcia dressed in plain clothes, were the first of him since he was deported in March in what the Trump administration has admitted was an administrative error.

Bukele mocked the meeting, claiming Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia were sipping margaritas, but the New York Times report said the purported margaritas were slipped in by an El Salvadoran staffer to stage the photo.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia to the country, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the U.S. government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release.

The White House has refused to comply, arguing the courts can’t intrude on the president’s diplomatic powers.

National Scrutiny Grows

Abrego Garcia, whose wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, is a U.S. citizen, has become a national flashpoint as President Donald Trump follows up on his campaign promises of mass deportations.

There have been protesters interrupting town halls held by Republican members of Congress, including one held by Marjorie Taylor Green in Georgia where two people were tased as people were removed from the event, NBC's Today show reported.

According to his attorneys, Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador when he was 16 years old to escape gang violence. He was arrested in March 2019 while soliciting work outside a Home Depot, and he was later ordered deported after a confidential informant told police he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

Abrego Garcia appealed the claim and was eventually granted “withholding from removal” status in October 2019 by an immigration judge, according to court documents.

On March 12, Abrego Garcia was pulled over by ICE officers after picking up his son from daycare. The officer told Abrego Garcia that his "status had changed" before placing him in handcuffs and detaining him, according to court documents.

Three days later, Abrego Garcia was taken to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, according to court documents, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside.

Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime and has denied the allegations, which include being a member of MS-13 in Long Island, New York, where he has never lived. Trump officials have called it “an administrative error” but insist Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13.

Abrego Garcia's wife and his 5-year-old child, both of whom are U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit on March 24 calling for his return.

Van Hollen on Wednesday said he maintains that Abrego Garcia was “illegally abducted from the United States and committed no crime.”

“I will keep pressing in my remaining time here and I will keep pressing beyond that,” Van Hollen said.

With reporting by Patch's Megan VerHelst and the Associated Press