Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said he was blocked Thursday from entering the El Salvador prison that is holding MS-13 suspect Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The Maryland senator, who flew to the country on Wednesday, shared a video on social media showing guards stopping him and others from entering CECOT, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held.
Van Hollen was joined by Chris Newman, who he said is the attorney for Abrego Garcia’s wife and mother, and said they are trying to check on the deported man’s condition.
The video also showed Van Hollen and Newman speaking to prison guards, who were visibly shaking their heads “no.”
“These soldiers were ordered to prevent us from going any farther from this spot,” Van Hollen said. “I understand we’re about three kilometers now from CECOT, and as you can see, they’re letting other cars go by, but they stopped us because they’re under orders not to allow us to proceed to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”
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.”
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.
Ship all Democrat Marxist Traitors to that prison!
IF he was NOT “processed” IN WHY are they insisting that he be processed” out properly
The nerve of that “senator” who has the gall to travel to El Salvador believing that his role as a none producing senator is going to be his in card? He does not know foreign countries. They scream about the USA not AFFORDING illegal criminals “due process,” when they were NOT processed in and should actually have NO rights in the country. I hope that this senator and that attorney are traveling on their own dime, because we the legal citizens, and taxpayers will NOT FOOT the bill for his misguided BS
Why do they continue to scream about “bringing him home” when he IS HOME. He is a citizen of El Salvador,, and that is WHERE he is now; He is NOT a citizen of the United States.