Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen has taken a lead role among Democrats opposing the Trump administration’s high-profile mistaken deportation of a migrant to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, announcing on Tuesday he was flying to the country with the intent to pay the man a visit.
Van Hollen said in a video posted on social media that the goal of his trip is to put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s actions, which critics contend amounts to ignoring an order from the Supreme Court to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
“We are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home until he returns to his family,” Van Hollen said.
An immigration judge in 2019 ordered that Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland, not be deported to El Salvador due to possible persecution. In March, the Trump administration sent him to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, and acknowledged that it was an “administrative error.”
While the government could still move forward with deportation proceedings if Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S., the administration has said they are not interested in retrieving him from the foreign prison to do so and courts cannot step into a president’s actions on national security.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued in court that the El Salvador citizen has never been charged with any crime, lived peacefully in the U.S. for years and raised a family, including three special-needs children.
Van Hollen added he hopes to meet with Abrego Garcia as well as representatives of the El Salvador government, asserting supporters would keep fighting because this is a “miscarriage of justice.” The Maryland Democrat said the Supreme Court had ruled unanimously in favor of Abrego Garcia.
“This is about due process; This is about rule of law,” Van Hollen said. “What bullies do is they begin by picking on the most vulnerable, but if we get rid of due process and rule of law in the United States, it’s a short road from there to tyranny.”
The trip occurs amid intense media scrutiny on the deportation of Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration claims was deported because he’s a member of the international gang MS-13. He has denied being a member of the gang.
Both sides now claim victory in a Supreme Court order that said a lower court had properly required the government to “facilitate” the return on Abrego Garcia “and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat and member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a social media post Monday that the Trump administration was acting in “lawlessness.”
“Trump can get Abrego Garcia back tomorrow and comply with the Supreme Court because: (1) El Salvador is our agent (and junior partner) in this arrangement by which we pay them millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to hold our deportees; (2) they are dependent on U.S. support; (3) and the president of El Salvador is coming to the White House this week,” Raskin said.
During a press gaggle at the White House during an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump and his top advisers and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, the administration said it was up to Bukele to decide whether to return Garcia to the United States, and Bukele said he would not.
Trump also flirted with the idea of sending U.S. citizens who commit crimes to the prison in El Salvador, saying he would look into that with advisers.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday in a statement Garcia “must be returned to the United States immediately,” saying Republicans should step up “in the face of a constitutional crisis.”
“You must join Democrats in responding to this madness and demanding that Mr. Abrego Garcia is returned to the United States immediately,” Durbin said. “If not, you will bow down to Donald Trump’s refusal to stand up to President Bukele — a self-styled dictator — and Donald Trump’s chilling remarks about potentially — and illegally — sending American citizens to the notoriously inhumane maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The choice is yours.”
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump on homeland security and immigration, said Monday on Fox News the Supreme Court decision “has been portrayed wrong for 72 hours in the media” and interpreting the decision as against the Trump administration is incorrect.
“We won the Supreme Court, clearly, 9-0” Miller said. “A district court said unconscionably that the president and his administration have to go into El Salvador and extradite one of their citizens — an El Salvadorian citizen, so that would be kidnapping — that we have to kidnap an El Salvadorian citizen against the will of his government and fly him back to America, which would be an unimaginable act and invasion of El Salvador’s sovereignty.”
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., posted on social media that the case should matter because the “one power you cannot give the executive is the ability to imprison or expel anyone regardless of their legal rights.”
“That is our key check against autocracy. And we are watching it disappear,” Murphy said.
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