Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is vowing to travel to El Salvador to barter the discharge of a wrongly deported man after the Trump administration ignored a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate his return to the U.S.
(It’s unclear if Hollen ever got to satisfy with Bukele.)
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to the media alongside union leaders and staff outside the Office of Personnel Management headquarters on March 4, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Employees gathered to protest recent cuts made to the department by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images
Abrego Garcia, 29, a Maryland resident of 14 years and father of three, was deported to El Salvador last month over 2019 allegations that he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
Abrego Garcia denies being a part of the gang and has never been charged with against the law, in response to his lawyers.
In 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador as he would likely have faced persecution by local gangs that had extorted his family for rent money in San Salvador, and who had threatened to rape and kill his siblings, in response to the Associated Press.
The family never went to authorities due to rampant police corruption, court filings say. The gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, later describing the error as “an administrative error” while insisting he was in MS-13.
In a separate statement on April 14, Van Hollen announced his intention to travel to El Salvador if Abrego Garcia isn’t granted freedom.
“Because the Trump administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we want to take additional motion … if Kilmar isn’t home by midweek — I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to examine on his condition and discuss his release,” the statement says.
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Abrego Garcia was on certainly one of three high-profile flights to El Salvador on March 15, carrying alleged gang members, lots of whom didn’t have criminal records.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said, “The USA acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was due to this fact illegal.”
“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to make sure that his case is handled as it might have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” it continues.
He’s currently detained on the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a notoriously dangerous prison housing a whole bunch of alleged gang members.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration had turned a blind eye to quite a few court orders demanding it provide details about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts for about every week.
On April 4, Xinis recommend an order directing the federal government to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia by no later than April 7. At a hearing on Friday, Xinis said it was “extremely troubling” that the U.S. Justice Department had didn’t comply with the request.
She had also demanded that the federal government discover his whereabouts and supply her with each day updates on his condition and what actions it had taken to make sure his release.
A U.S. State Department court document filed on Saturday said Abrego Garcia was “alive and secure” under the watch of El Salvador’s government.
A member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds an image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference to debate his arrest and deportation on the Cannon House Office Constructing on April 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Monday, Trump administration officials pushed back against the concept of bringing him home, arguing it was as much as El Salvador. Meanwhile, Bukele argued he lacked the ability to return him, saying it might be “preposterous” to “smuggle a terrorist into america.”
Bukele has famously painted himself as a “cool” dictator who takes a hardline approach to tackling gang-related crime, which, despite being curbed under his reign, in response to the federal government, has raised human rights concerns.
Also on Monday, Trump cut off CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins, who pressed him on his decision to disregard the Supreme Court order.
“You said if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, you’d abide by that,” Collins said to the president.
“Why don’t you only say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we’re keeping criminals out of our country?’” Trump rebuffed, adding, “That’s why no one watches you anymore. You will have no credibility.”
Trump also says his administration is looking into the legality of sending Americans convicted of violent crimes to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s life within the U.S.
Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the 12 months he turned 16, in response to documents filed in his immigration case. He joined his brother, Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and located work in construction.
Five years later, he met his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen.
In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in along with her and her two children in Prince George’s County, just outside Washington, D.C.
In 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested by county police while at a Home Depot searching for work, in response to court filings. Detectives asked if he was a gang member. After explaining he wasn’t, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months right into a high-risk pregnancy.
ICE, nonetheless, alleged that he was a licensed gang member based on information that got here from a confidential informant utilized by county police, records state.
In response to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in Recent York, where he has never lived.
The knowledge was enough for an immigration judge in 2019 to maintain Abrego Garcia in jail as his immigration case continued, court records state. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership and rank.
Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention centre, in response to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail.
In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador due to a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, in response to his case. He was released, and ICE didn’t appeal.
Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while the Department of Homeland Security issued him a piece permit, his lawyers said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full-time as a sheet metal apprentice.
He and Vasquez Sura were raising three kids, including their five-year-old son, who has autism, is deaf in a single ear and is unable to verbally communicate, in response to the criticism filed against the Trump administration. They’re also raising a nine-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.
— With files from The Associated Press
