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• The Guardian
• Wed Apr 16 2025

Maryland?s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar ?brego Garc?a, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting ?brego Garc?a at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported at Donald Trump?s orders.

The senator?s visit came days after Trump and El Salvador?s president, Nayib Bukele, refused to take steps to return ?brego Garc?a to the United States, even though the US supreme court last week said the administration must ?facilitate? his return.

At a press conference in El Salvador, Van Hollen said that he had met with the country?s vice-president, F?lix Ulloa, who told him it would not be possible for him to speak with ?brego Garc?a in person or on the phone.

?I asked the vice-president if I could meet with Mr ?brego Garc?a. And he said, well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit Cecot,? Van Hollen said. ?I said, I?m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of Cecot, I just want to meet with Mr ?brego Garc?a. He said he was not able to make that happen.?

Van Hollen said he offered to come back next week to meet with ?brego Garc?a, but Ulloa ?said he couldn?t promise that either?. The vice-president also said he could not arrange for ?brego Garc?a?s family to speak to him by phone. When the senator asked if he could do so, Ulloa told him that the US embassy must make that request, Van Hollen said.

?We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about ?brego Garc?a,? said Van Hollen, who said his constituent had been wrongly named as a member of the MS-13 criminal gang. The Trump administration has admitted that an ?administrative error? led to the deportation of ?brego Garc?a to his native country, despite an immigration judge granting him protected status in 2019.

Van Hollen said that he had asked Ulloa if he would consider releasing ?brego Garc?a, to which the vice-president replied by reiterating Bukele?s comments from earlier this week that he would not ?smuggle? the deportee back into the United States.

The senator?s visit came as Democrats have seized on the deportation and the Trump administration?s refusal to take any steps to return him, in apparent defiance of the supreme court, to argue that the president is plunging the United States into a constitutional crisis by defying the courts.

The White House has attacked Van Hollen for his visit to the country, releasing a statement on Wednesday that touted the arrests of suspected undocumented immigrant criminals and saying: ?Where was his concern for Maryland constituents put at risk by the many other illegal immigrants allowed to roam free until now??

In an appearance on Fox News, Trump?s border czar, Tom Homan, said: ?Rather than taking care of the constituents in his state, the victims of illegal crime in his state, he?s going to run to El Salvador to protect an MS-13 terrorist. It?s just disgusting.?

Several other Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to visit El Salvador to check on ?brego Garc?a, including Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic caucus, and Robert Garcia and Maxwell Alejandro Frost, both members of the House oversight committee.

?I can assure the president, the vice-president, that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming,? Van Hollen said.

?This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, and so it cannot continue this way.?