Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is vowing to travel to El Salvador to negotiate the release 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 Van Hollen ever got to meet with Bukele.)
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to the media alongside union leaders and workers outside the Office of Personnel Management headquarters on March 4, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Workers 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 part of the gang and has never been charged with a crime, according 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, according to the Associated Press.
The family never went to authorities because of 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 mistake 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 is not granted freedom.
“Since the Trump administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action … if Kilmar is not home by midweek — I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release,” the statement says.
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Abrego Garcia was on one of three high-profile flights to El Salvador on March 15, carrying alleged gang members, many of whom did not have criminal records.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said, “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.”
“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” it continues.
He is currently detained at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a notoriously dangerous prison housing hundreds of alleged gang members.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration had turned a blind eye to numerous court orders demanding it provide information about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts for about a week.
On April 4, Xinis put forward an order directing the 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 failed to comply with the request.
She had also demanded that the government identify his whereabouts and provide her with daily updates on his condition and what actions it had taken to ensure 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 a picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference to discuss his arrest and deportation at the Cannon House Office Building on April 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Monday, Trump administration officials pushed back against the idea of bringing him home, arguing it was up to El Salvador. Meanwhile, Bukele argued he lacked the power to return him, saying it would be “preposterous” to “smuggle a terrorist into the United States.”
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, according to the 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 just say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we’re keeping criminals out of our country?’” Trump rebuffed, adding, “That’s why nobody watches you anymore. You have no credibility.”
Trump also says his administration is looking into the legality of sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s life in the U.S.
Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents filed in his immigration case. He joined his brother, Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found 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 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 looking for work, according 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 into a high-risk pregnancy.
ICE, however, alleged that he was a certified gang member based on information that came from a confidential informant used by county police, records state.
According to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he has never lived.
The information was enough for an immigration judge in 2019 to keep 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, according 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 because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released, and ICE did not appeal.
Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while the Department of Homeland Security issued him a work 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 one ear and is unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint 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
