President Donald Trump criticized Chris Van Hollen for visiting El Salvador to meet with a detained migrant, labeling the Democratic senator as a ‘fool’ seeking attention.
During the visit, Van Hollen met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Maryland resident and father of three who was deported in a recent migrant crackdown for alleged ties to the MS-13 gang. Van Hollen shared a photo of their meeting on social media.
Following his deportation, which the Trump administration acknowledges was a mistake, Democrats have been advocating for the release of the ‘Maryland father.’ They argue that his removal was wrongful, asserting that he is not a criminal.
Trump, who claims Garcia is a member of MS-13 and belongs in jail, lashed out at the Maryland senator.
‘Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!,’ the president wrote on his X account.
Trump, during an Oval Office event Friday, was asked about other Democrats wanting to make the trip: ‘They’re all fake, and they have no interest in that prisoner. That prisoners record is unbelievably bad,’ he said.
President Donald Trump slammed Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland for his trip to El Salvador
The White House has bashed Van Hollen for the trip to South America and tried to compare Garcia’s situation to a case involving Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother who was brutally raped and murdered by an El Salvadoran migrant.
Morin’s mother Patty joined White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at her briefing on Wednesday to discuss her daughter’s case. She also met with President Trump.
The White House posted a side-by-side comparison of Patty with Trump and Van Hollen with Garcia, writing of the photos: ‘We are not the same.’
Van Hollen flew to El Salvador on Wednesday to try and meet with Garcia in order to check on his and his condition. The senator was denied entry into the notorious CECOT, or Center for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism, in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, where Garcia is being held.
But later El Salvadorian officials arranged for the two men to meet outside CECOT.
Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X but did not provide any other updates.
Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who has lived in Maryland for almost 15 years. While he initially entered the U.S. illegally, a federal judge in 2019 granted him protection from being deported, due to concerns for his safety if he were to return to El Salvador.
He was picked up outside an Ikea in Baltimore on March 12 and eventually sent to El Salvador. His attorneys are suing the administration for his return.
Trump and El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele said they have no basis to return him to the United States, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate Garcia’s return.
‘He is not coming back to our country,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters his week.
‘President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,’ she said. ‘If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation, ever, where he was going to stay in this country. None.’
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen meets Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Van Hollen said he traveled to El Salvador to check on Garcia’s condition as his family had been able to get in touch with him.
‘I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,’ Van Hollen wrote on X, with a photo of the two men talking in what appeared to be a restaurant.
‘Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.’
It´s not clear how the meeting was arranged, where the two men met or what will happen to Garcia.
Bukele posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying, ‘Now that he´s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador´s custody.’
The tweet ended with emojis of the U.S. and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.
Trump, who met with Bukele in the Oval Office earlier this week, and his officials claim Garica is a member of the dangerous gang MS-13. But Garcia denies this and there are no charges connecting him to the gang.
When asked by reporters Thursday afternoon if he believed Garcia was entitled to due process, Trump ducked the question.
‘I have to refer, again, to the lawyers,’ he said in the Oval Office. ‘I have to do what they ask me to do.’
President Donald Trump shakes hands with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele
Van Hollen’s meeting came hours after he said he was denied entry into the high-security CECOT prison.
The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador on Thursday afternoon, before his meeting, that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from the prison 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.
While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the prison.
Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he´d visited the prison where Garcia is being held. He did not mention Garcia.
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.’
Van Hollen first arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday morning and met shortly afterward with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa, who told him that his government could not return Garcia to the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials acknowledged in a court filing earlier this month that his deportation was an ‘ administrative error.’
The government’s acknowledgment sparked immediate uproar from immigration advocates, but White House officials have dug in on the allegation that he´s a gang member and will not be returned to the United States.
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 megaprison.
That prison is part of Bukele´s broader effort to crack down on his country’s street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Bukele plans to expand the CECOT, which is already the largest prison in the world, he told Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when she visited last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
‘We have no plans to bring them back, this is a long-term solution,’ she told the news outlet. ‘He has plans to double the size. He has 80-plus acres there that he’s going to continue to build on.’
Inmates at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison
Doubling the prison’s capacity would create space for a total of 80,000 inmates.
The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) was built in late 2022 amid a gang crackdown in El Salvador.
As of June 11, 2024, CECOT had a population of 14,532 inmates. It can hold 40,000.
The prison faces allegations of human rights violations, including overcrowding, lack of due process, and inhumane conditions.
It sits on 57 acres and Bukele’s government controls the 350 acres around the compound. It’s surrounded by 19 guard towers, 24-inch-thick walls that are topped with barbed wire, and two sets of electrified fences.
The prison is staffed by 600 soldiers and 250 police officers.
In mid-March, Trump’s administration deported more than 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador – most of them Venezuelan – and had them incarcerated in CECOT. The U.S. is paying Bukele’s government $6 million to hold them.
Noem, who visited the prison, said El Salvadoran officials told her the prisoners deported from the U.S. were treated better than local inmates.
‘They have mattresses. They have full meals,’ she said. ‘They receive time for exercise and are getting medical checks on a regular basis.’
