Senator Goes to El Salvador to At Least Meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) got on a flight around 06:00 to El Salvador with the primary goal of at least meeting with his constituent Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as well as trying to get him released. He got only frustration.

With President Nayib Bukele out of the country, Van Hollen met with Vice President Félix Ulloa who said El Salvador knew nothing to link Abrego Garcia to the gang MS-13. Ulloa refused to allow Van Hollen to visit to the notorious CECOT prison where Abrego Garcia is being held, although multiple Republican lawmakers and officials from the USA have done so, taking photos and making videos there.

Van Hollen asked, “If the government of El Salvador has no evidence that he was part of MS-13, why is El Salvador continuing to hold him in CECOT?”

In a press conference after the meeting, Van Hollen said, “And his answer was that the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him [Abrego Garcia] at CECOT.”

Ulloa claimed to need more time to arrange a visit to CECOT. Van Hollen asked whether he could return next week to visit Abrego Garcia, and Ulloa said it was not likely. He provided no information about Abrego Garcia’s health status.

Ulloa said even for a phone call with Van Hollen or with Abrego Garcia’s family, the USA embassy would have to submit a request and it would not happen quickly. Van Hollen checked with the embassy to find out whether it had done anything about Abrego Garcia. It had not. The embassy had not received any instructions from Donald Trump’s regime regarding Abrego Garcia despite an order by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” his return to the USA.

Van Hollen’s remarks to the press included:

In fact, the United States Embassy here has told me they’ve received no direction from the Trump administration to help facilitate his release. So the Trump administration is clearly in violation of American court orders. 

I want to emphasize that President Trump and our Attorney General Pam Bondi and the vice president of the United States are lying when they say that Abrego Garcia has been charged with a crime or was part of MS-13. That is a lie.

This is a lie to cover up what they did.

The Trump administration needs to obey the law, but I’m also asking the government of El Salvador, and the president and vice president of El Salvador, not to keep a man who was illegally abducted from the United States and charged with no crime to remain in CECOT when, as a sovereign country, they have the power to let him go and let him go now.

Van Hollen tried to drive to CECOT, but was stopped by soldiers.

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