SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Diya TV) — Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday to urge the release of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland resident whose deportation has ignited a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s handling of immigration enforcement.
Abrego García, 29, fled El Salvador more than a decade ago to escape political persecution but was deported last month after what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later admitted was an “administrative error.” His removal has stirred bipartisan outrage, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that his deportation was illegal and ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return.
Van Hollen, speaking to reporters from El Salvador’s capital, said Salvadoran officials denied his request to meet or speak with Abrego García, who remains detained inside the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. El Salvador’s vice president, Félix Ulloa, told Van Hollen that the U.S. Embassy might be able to arrange a phone call, but refused to release him or grant access to the prison.
“I’m simply asking him to open the door of CECOT and let this innocent man walk out,” Van Hollen told reporters, rejecting Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s earlier suggestion that releasing Abrego García would amount to “smuggling” him back into the U.S.
Van Hollen also claimed Ulloa told him the Trump administration is “paying El Salvador to keep him at CECOT” — an accusation both the Salvadoran and U.S. governments have not publicly addressed.
The case has become a flash point in the larger debate over the Trump administration’s immigration policy, particularly after federal courts ruled that Abrego García had not committed any crime and was not a gang member, despite repeated claims by U.S. officials. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had cited a “Gang Field Interview Sheet” from Maryland police as evidence he belonged to MS-13, but his lawyers and a federal judge found no proof of gang affiliation. Another judge noted Abrego García and his family had been victims of gang threats back home, not members.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Attorney General Pam Bondi have doubled down, labeling Abrego García an MS-13 gang member, even though the Department of Justice has not charged him with any crime. Bondi defended the deportation on Wednesday, calling it lawful under Trump’s executive orders, despite the Supreme Court ruling.
Leavitt, during a White House press briefing, criticized Van Hollen for traveling to El Salvador “potentially using taxpayer dollars” and called the senator’s efforts “appalling and sad.” She appeared at the briefing alongside Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was killed in 2023 by Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Morin accused Van Hollen of prioritizing “someone who’s not even an American citizen” over American families like hers.
Van Hollen, however, has insisted Abrego García’s case is about the rule of law. “I’m asking President Bukele, under his authority, to do the right thing and allow Mr. Abrego García to walk out of prison, a man who is charged with no crime, convicted with no crime, and was illegally abducted from the United States,” he said.
Other Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), have also demanded Abrego García’s return. Wyden warned that the administration is using the case as “a test to see what it can get away with, laying the groundwork to send American citizens to a foreign gulag.”
Despite the court’s clear ruling, the administration has not taken steps to repatriate Abrego García, with Leavitt vowing Wednesday that “if he ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again.”
Van Hollen pledged to keep fighting. “There will be more members of Congress coming,” he said, signaling that the political battle over Abrego García’s fate is far from over.
