The Maryland lawmaker arrived in the country on April 16.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he met Thursday in El Salvador with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran illegal immigrant who was deported due to what the Justice Department called an administrative error.
Van Hollen, who has been advocating for Abrego Garcia to be brought back to the United States, arrived in El Salvador on April 16 and met with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa. Abrego Garcia has been incarcerated in CECOT, the country’s largest maximum security prison.
Van Hollen, who recorded his trip in several posts to the social media platform X, was initially unable to meet with Abrego Garcia on April 16, but was later permitted to do so on April 17.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture,’ now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele wrote.
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Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador has become a political flashpoint in ongoing debates about the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Democrats say Abrego Garcia’s deportation, despite his illegal status, violated the law as well as his due process rights.
Abrego Garcia was living with his wife and child, both U.S. citizens, in Maryland when he was arrested. The administration has said that he has ties to MS-13—a criminal gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government—which Abrego Garcia’s attorney has denied.
He was protected from deportation back to El Salvador under a 2019 court order that determined that he would face severe threat to his life and safety in his home country.
In an earlier court filing in a case that challenged Abrego Garcia’s removal from the United States, the Trump administration indicated that the deportation was a mistake.
“On March 15, although [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” a March 31 court filing reads.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s earlier orders required the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. The judge also ordered expedited discovery to determine whether the administration complied with an order for that facilitation. She questioned the evidence that the government said tied Abrego Garcia to MS-13.
The appeals court declined the administration’s request, noting that Xinis’s order was merely an effort to align with a prior Supreme Court directive instructing her to clarify her instructions for the government to bring about Abrego Garcia’s return.
On April 10, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Xinis released an amended order to “Direct that defendants take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
He added that if Abrego Garcia presented at a port of entry, “DHS would take him into custody in the United States and either remove him to a third country or terminate his withholding of removal because of his membership in MS-13.”
One was a Prince George’s County Police Department report from 2019 stating that “officers contacted a past proven and reliable source of information, who advised Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia is an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique.”
Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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