Maryland Sen. Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador amid court fight over US return

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met Thursday in El Salvador with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Abrego Garcia's wife “to pass along his message of love.” The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

"My children and my prayers have been answered. The efforts of my family and community in fighting for justice are being heard, because I now know that my husband is alive. God is listening, and the community is standing strong," said Abrego Garcia's wife Jennifer in a statement. "We still have so many questions, hopes, and fears. I will continue praying and fighting for Kilmars' return home. Thank you to everyone, including Senator Van Hollen, my CASA family, all our Union's, faith leaders and community for continuing this fight for my family to be reunited."

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

"Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody," Bukele wrote.

The meeting came hours after Van Hollen said he was denied entry into an high-security El Salvador prison Thursday while he was trying to check on Abrego Garcia's well-being and push for his release.

The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 2 miles from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.

“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed," Van Hollen said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Abrego Garcia back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have seized on Abrego Garcia's deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump's disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.

The Maryland senator told reporters Wednesday that he met with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa, who said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr. Abrego Garcia by driving to the CECOT prison,” Van Hollen said Thursday.

Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well-being," Van Hollen said. He said Abrego Garcia should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.

“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.

RELATED STORY | Protective order against Kilmar Abrego Garcia complicates narrative amid deportation

While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration's efforts. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held. He did not mention Abrego Garcia but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”

“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.

Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump" the facility “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans.”

The fight over Abrego Garcia has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the U.S. more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.

Human rights groups have accused Bukele's government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment." Officials there deny wrongdoing.