The senator said he would try to arrange a phone call between the deported Salvadoran and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on April 18 described his meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man that the Trump administration said it deported due to an administrative error.
Van Hollen made the remarks at a Friday press conference after returning to Washington from El Salvador, where he had traveled this week with the intention of meeting Abrego Garcia in person. On Wednesday, he told reporters that El Salvador’s government initially denied him a visit or phone call with the deportee after meeting with the country’s Vice President Félix Ulloa.
That visit finally occurred on Thursday, when Salvadoran officials transported Abrego Garcia to the hotel where Van Hollen was staying. He described his efforts to facilitate a meeting with the man and what the two discussed when they met face to face.
According to the senator, after the initial denial, he drove toward El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security prison, where Abrego Garcia is being detained. Soldiers stopped his vehicle and would not let him proceed, citing official orders.
Hours later, Van Hollen received word that Salvadoran officials would bring Abrego Garcia to his hotel. The lawmaker said the man described getting handcuffed by U.S. immigration authorities in Maryland before first being taken to a detention center in Baltimore, then in Texas.
Later, according to Van Hollen, Abrego Garcia was put in handcuffs and shackles and boarded a plane with other deportees to El Salvador, where he was placed in a holding cell at CECOT with roughly 25 other prisoners.
“He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways, he told me,” Van Hollen said. “He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes.”
The senator said he would try to arrange a phone call between Abrego Garcia and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura.
Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally and was granted “withholding of removal” status by an immigration judge in 2019, who determined that he faced severe threats to his life and safety in El Salvador.
The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia’s deportation, which took place on March 15, was a result of an “administrative error.”
Citing a confidential government informant, the Department of Homeland Security said he is a member of the MS-13 transnational gang, now a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, which he and his attorneys deny.
The administration has been prioritizing the deportations of illegal immigrants affiliated with such criminal organizations.
The judge presiding over his current case said the Trump administration has not presented evidence of Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang affiliation, and is relying on the informant’s testimony.
His attorneys have challenged the administration in court. The Supreme Court ruled 9–0 April 10 that the federal government must “facilitate” his return to the United States.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said this week that Abrego Garcia “is not coming back to our country” because he is now in the custody of his home country.
“[Salvadoran] President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” Bondi said.
A federal judge previously ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, which government lawyers appealed.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied the Trump administration’s request to block the order.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized Van Hollen the previous day for trying to visit a “deported illegal alien MS-13 terrorist.”
Leavitt also accused Van Hollen of not expressing the same empathy for Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, who was killed by a Salvadoran illegal immigrant in 2023. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was found guilty April 14 of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, and kidnapping.
The White House invited Patty Morin to a press briefing on Wednesday, but declined to take questions about Abrego Garcia’s case.
“Why does that person have more right than I do, or my daughter, or my grandchildren?” Morin said at the briefing. “I don’t understand this.”
Van Hollen told reporters on Friday that he understood the threat of MS-13, and said he worked across the aisle with other congressmen when he was a representative for Maryland’s 8th District to create a regional “anti-gang task force in the Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia area.”
He said Abrego Garcia’s case is about due process for “everybody who resides in America.”
Van Hollen also responded to the accusation that he didn’t have the same empathy for Morin.
“My heart goes out to the family of Rachel Morin,” Van Hollen said. “My heart breaks for what happened to them. That should not happen to any family in America, and I am very glad that a court of law convicted her killer and is going to punish her killer.”
The senator said he was “very glad” the murder suspect was convicted this week.
He said courts are intended not just to punish the guilty, like Morin’s killer, but also to ensure those who are innocent are not found guilty and “arbitrarily detained.”
Sam Dorman and Travis Gillmore contributed to this report.