Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday to press for the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration and remains imprisoned in his native country.
The trip was the latest chapter in an intensifying political battle over the case of Mr. Abrego Garcia, who was removed from the United States last month in what immigration officials have acknowledged was an error. Although the Supreme Court has instructed the U.S. government to facilitate his return, both American and Salvadoran authorities have so far refused to do so.
Mr. Van Hollen met with El Salvador’s vice president, Félix Ulloa, as well as officials at the U.S. embassy there, but he came away with no assurances that he would be able to see or even speak to Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is being held in a notorious maximum security prison known for human rights violations.
And his visit did little to change the minds of the Trump administration or Salvadoran officials who have refused to release Mr. Abrego Garcia. After his meeting with Mr. Ulloa, Mr. Van Hollen told reporters that the explanation Mr. Ulloa provided for continuing to keep Mr. Abrego Garcia in detention in the absence of a criminal charge against him was that the Trump administration was paying El Salvador to do so.
“I’m asking President Bukele under his authority as president of El Salvador to do the right thing and allow Mr. Abrego Garcia to walk out of a prison — a man who’s charged with no crime, convicted of no crime and who was illegally abducted from the United States,” Mr. Van Hollen told reporters in San Salvador, the capital.
The Trump administration has accused Mr. Abrego Garcia of being a member of the dangerous transnational gang MS-13. Mr. Van Hollen portrayed him instead as an innocent family man who was illegally “abducted” from the streets of Maryland in a miscarriage of justice, and bluntly accused the Trump administration of “lying” to justify its mistakes in deporting him.
“We have an unjust situation here, the Trump administration is lying about Abrego Garcia,” Mr. Van Hollen said.
He called out President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Vice President JD Vance by name, saying that claims from top administration officials that Mr. Abrego Garcia had been charged with a crime or was part of MS-13 were inaccurate.
The senator said he hoped to visit Mr. Abrego Garcia at the prison, known as CECOT, about an hour outside San Salvador, but that Mr. Ulloa had cast doubt on his chances of doing so.
“I said I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia,” Mr. Van Hollen said he told the Salvadoran vice president. “He said he was not able to make that happen. He said he needed a little more time.”
He was similarly noncommittal about the chance of allowing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family to speak with him, saying that such requests would have to come at the behest of officials from the U.S. embassy there, which is run by the Trump administration.
A spokeswoman for the Salvadoran presidency, Wendy Ramos, did not immediately respond to a request for the government’s comment on Mr. Van Hollen’s remarks. White House officials said in March that the U.S. government was paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to hold deported members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Officials have not said whether that also covers the detention of Salvadorans removed as part of the same operation, like Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Mr. Van Hollen made his visit shortly after President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador traveled to Washington this week for a meeting with Mr. Trump. The leaders appeared side-by-side in the Oval Office, with Mr. Bukele saying he had no intention of releasing Mr. Abrego Garcia and Mr. Trump saying he was powerless to seek his return.
Mr. Van Hollen said he had been unable to meet with Mr. Bukele on Wednesday because he was traveling.
The case has supercharged a partisan battle over immigration. Democrats argue that the Trump administration defied the law in deporting and then refusing to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, who entered the United States illegally but was later granted “withholding of removal” status, in 2019. Mr. Trump and other Republicans accuse Democrats of catering to a dangerous criminal who has no right to be in the United States.
In a statement on Wednesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee said Democrats were acting as “travel agents for illegal immigrants.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration stuck to its position, continuing to defy the Supreme Court’s order. Asked about the case, Ms. Bondi declared that Mr. Abrego Garcia would not be repatriated unless the Salvadoran president decided to return him. Even if that happened, she said, the United States would immediately deport him again.
“President Bukele said he was not sending him back,” Ms. Bondi said. “That’s the end of the story.” She added that Mr. Abrego Garcia is “from El Salvador, he’s in El Salvador and that’s where the president plans on keeping him.”
With Congress in a two-week recess and Mr. Abrego Garcia’s fate becoming increasingly politicized, more members of Congress were making trips to El Salvador to weigh in on his case. At least two House Republicans, Riley Moore of West Virginia and Jason Smith of Missouri, toured the prison where Mr. Abrego Garcia was being held, although it was unclear whether they met with or saw him during their visit.
Both lawmakers posted photos on social media from inside the facility and argued in favor of its continued use as a destination for imprisoning deportees, as well as criminals from the United States.
“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Mr. Moore wrote, alongside photos of him posing with thumbs up in front of a jail cell where several inmates were being held in multitiered metal bunks.
Mr. Smith praised Mr. Trump’s use of the facility and wrote that it was “unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country.”
Representatives Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida and Robert Garcia of California, both Democrats, also planned to visit El Salvador, according to two people familiar with their plans who discussed them on the condition of anonymity because they were not yet final.
The two wrote on Tuesday to Representative James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, requesting an official congressional delegation be sent to the nation to conduct a “welfare check” on Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Mr. Frost and Mr. Garcia also said more oversight was needed given Mr. Trump’s remarks this week that he wanted to send “homegrown criminals,” including American citizens, to the Salvadoran prison.
“I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will more members of Congress coming,” Mr. Van Hollen said on Wednesday.
Annie Correal contributed reporting from Panama City.
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