Dem Senator Issues Ultimatum: Bring Back Deported MS-13 Suspect Or I’ll Go To El Salvador

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A Democrat Senator announced his plans to personally travel to El Salvador if a deported MS-13 suspect is not immediately returned to the United States this week.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) issued the statement on Monday as an ultimatum, expressing his desire to speak with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who was in Washington, D.C., to meet with President Donald Trump.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia never should have been abducted and illegally deported, and the courts have made clear: the Administration must bring him home, now,” Van Hollen said. “However, since the Trump Administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action.”

He continued, “That’s why I’ve requested to meet with President Bukele during his trip to the United States, and — 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.”

Van Hollen also revealed on Monday that he sent a letter to El Salvador’s U.S. ambassador, Milena Mayorga, “urgently” requesting a meeting with Bukele.

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday that he has no plans to return a Maryland man wrongfully deported to a prison in his country. (RELATED: El Salvador’s President Refuses To Return Mistakenly Deported US Resident)

Bukele’s Oval Office meeting with President Trump was the first since the Supreme Court ruled last week that the U.S. must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (RELATED: Supreme Court Unanimously Orders Trump Admin To Bring Back Wrongfully Deported Man)

However, both Trump and Bukele suggested they don’t have the power to return the Maryland man and Salvadoran national to the U.S.

“How could I return him to the United States? I smuggle him to the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele said, going on to refer to Abrego Garcia as a terrorist.

“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. I’m not releasing — I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” he added, saying El Salvador is no longer the murder capital of the world.

White House aide Stephen Miller said seeking Abrego Garcia’s return would equate to kidnapping him.

“A district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here. That issue was raised at the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components reversed, 9-0, unanimously stating clearly that neither the secretary of state nor the President could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador, who again, is a member of MS-13,” Miller said during the meeting.

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