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Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Wednesday during his trip to El Salvador that he “won’t rest” until Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 member who was deported to a mega prison in his home country, is brought back to the United States.
Van Hollen has described the man as “wrongfully abducted” and traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to discuss efforts to bring the man back to Maryland, where he was living illegally.
The senator was able to speak with Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay, but was not able to make contact with Abrego Garcia in person or via phone.
“I’ve been in El Salvador all day fighting for the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen said in a caption to a video posted on X on Wednesday night. “The Trump Admin can lie all they want, but the Court said they failed to show he was part of MS-13. This is about bringing home a man they ADMIT should’ve never been abducted. I won’t rest until then.”
During an appearance at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Patty Morin called out Van Hollen for his visit to El Salvador.
“And to have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge or barely acknowledge my daughter, and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grand baby without a grandmother, so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen,” she said. “Why does that person have more rights than I do for my daughter? For my grandchildren?”
While he did not address Patty Morin directly, Van Hollen said in a video posted to X later Wednesday evening that he cares “about every victim of crime.”
He also said that America has a court system to make sure criminals are held accountable and “that people who have not committed crimes, or not been convicted of crimes, are not disappeared out of the United States and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, like Abrego Garcia.”
“This is simply about letting him have his day in court. We use the courts to make sure that we don’t convict people who are not guilty, and that we convict those who are,” he said, in part.
Abrego Garcia is at the center of a controversial debate after he was deported to El Salvador’s “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT) for his alleged gang affiliation, which his attorneys have denied.
The Department of Homeland Security shared an interview sheet with Fox News from Prince George’s County police’s Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad that identified Abrego Garcia as an active member of MS-13’s “Westerns” clique in 2019, according to a “past proven and reliable source.” The source said he held the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker of “Chele.”
He was marked eligible for deportation in 2019 after he claimed that he illegally entered the U.S. near McAllen, Texas, on or about March 25, 2012, after he “walked across the desert for many days,” according to a 2019 DHS interview document shared with Fox News.
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Van Hollen is not the only Democrat lawmaker seeking to visit Abrego Garcia in El Salvador with the goal of bringing him back to the U.S. after the Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court’s decision ordering his return.
The court required the “government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from returning to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is “up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That’s not up to us.”
Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo, Greg Wehner and Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
The post Dem senator says he will continue ‘fighting for the return’ of deported El Salvadoran man: ‘Won’t rest’ appeared first on Fox News.
