U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen says El Salvador’s government blocked him from visiting Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported and is now locked up in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.
Van Hollen flew to El Salvador this week hoping to see Ábrego García in person. Instead, he says officials stonewalled him.
“I asked the vice-president if I could meet with Mr Ábrego García. And he said, well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit Cecot,” Van Hollen told reporters. “I said, I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of Cecot, I just want to meet with Mr Ábrego García. He said he was not able to make that happen.”
The vice-president, Félix Ulloa, also refused to let Ábrego García speak to his family by phone—and wouldn’t even promise a future meeting. “He couldn’t promise that either,” Van Hollen said.
Ábrego García was deported last month under a Trump-era order, even though a U.S. immigration judge gave him protected status back in 2019. The Trump administration later admitted his deportation was due to an “administrative error.” Still, El Salvador won’t release him. And despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision directing the government to “facilitate” his return, there’s been no movement.
Van Hollen didn’t hold back. “We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about Ábrego García,” he said. Trump officials falsely labeled him as an MS-13 gang member—claims Van Hollen says have no basis.
When Van Hollen asked Ulloa to release him, the vice-president simply repeated what President Nayib Bukele said earlier in the week: that El Salvador wouldn’t “smuggle” the man back to the U.S.
Meanwhile, the White House attacked Van Hollen for even making the trip. In a statement, they accused him of ignoring “constituents put at risk by the many other illegal immigrants allowed to roam free until now.”
Trump’s former border chief Tom Homan went even further, telling Fox News: “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.”
Van Hollen, unfazed, said he’s not the only one paying attention. More Democrats, including key members of Congress, are preparing to go to El Salvador and demand answers.
“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,” he warned.
“This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, and so it cannot continue this way.”
Watch Senator Van Hollen’s exchange with reporters during his visit to El Salvador below:
