WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) ripped two Democratic reps on Friday for trying to fleece his panel’s budget for a taxpayer-funded trip to meet an alleged MS-13 gang member whose deportation to an El Salvador megaprison has become a rallying point for critics of President Trump’s immigration agenda.
Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Tuesday asked for Comer to approve funding for flights down to CECOT, the massive prison that began housing thousands of gang members apprehended in the Central American nation amid a sweeping crime crackdown in 2022 — and has since begun holding accused criminal migrant deportees from the US.
But the GOP Oversight chairman denied their request to meet with the purported MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Friday letter obtained by The Post shows.
“It is absurd that you both displayed active hostility for over two years toward the Committee’s oversight of the Biden Border Crisis and the consequences of millions of illegal aliens entering the country, yet now, you are seeking travel at Committee expense to meet with foreign gang members,” Comer said.
“You may be pleased to know that a Democrat senator, Chris Van Hollen, was photographed just yesterday in El Salvador enjoying margaritas garnished with cherry slices with the foreign gang member your letter references,” he added.
“If you also wish to meet with him, you can spend your own money. But I will not approve a single dime of taxpayer funds for use on the excursion you have requested.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) accused Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday of also “wasting taxpayer dollars” by “visiting and defending a transnational gang member and reported domestic abuser.”
Van Hollen was denied entry to CECOT but later photographed sharing margaritas with Abrego Garcia at his hotel — though he claimed the alcoholic drinks were brought by the government of El Salvador.
“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is,” he told reporters at Dulles International Airport in Virginia upon his return to the US.
“This is a lesson into the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on,” the Maryland Democrat said of El Salvador’s leader Nayib Bukele. “And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and the president will go to.”
The Trump administration claims Abrego Garcia illegally crossed the southern border into the US in 2011 — and was ordered by immigration courts to be deported after being arrested by cops in Maryland while loitering in a Home Depot parking lot with MS-13 gangsters, according to records released by the Department of Justice Wednesday.
One “past proven and reliable source” also informed a Hyattsville City Police Department detective at the time of Abrego Garcia’s apprehension that the El Salvador native was a member of MS-13’s Western clique who carried the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker “Chele,” a gang field interview sheet showed.
Despite displaying other gang symbols, Abrego Garcia was permitted to remain in the US in October 2019 to avoid retaliation from MS-13’s rival Barrio 18, an immigration judge ruled.
Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to ship Abrego Garcia and 260 other reputed gang members off to CECOT after a $6 million arrangement was struck between Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Democrats like Van Hollen, Frost and Garcia have pointed to the admission of a Trump official in a Maryland federal court filing that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) committed an “administrative error” in rounding up Abrego Garcia as part of the deportation flights.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have also argued their client has no criminal history in America to support his removal under the 18th-century wartime authority that Trump made use of.
Federal courts have since ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return to the US.
Republicans and border hawks have pointed to resurfaced police reports and court cases involving Abrego Garcia that show his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, once accused him of physically abusing her — and he was suspected of being involved in human trafficking.
The Post reached out to reps for Frost and Garcia for comment.
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