WASHINGTON (AP) ā The dispute over the and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia āis not only about one manā but about Donald Trump's disregard of the American judicial system as well, Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Friday as he returned from a three-day trip to El Salvador .
Speaking to reporters just after landing back in the United States, Van Hollen offered few answers about what will come next in Abrego Garciaās case. But the Maryland Democrat said that he and others will keep speaking out after the Trump administration defied court orders to facilitate his return to the United States and insisted that he would stay in El Salvador ā even as officials acknowledged an āerrorā in deporting him.
āItās about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States,ā Van Hollen said at Washington Dulles International Airport at a news conference with Abrego Garcia's supporters behind him. āItās very clear that the president, Trump administration, are blatantly, flagrantly disagreeing with, defying the order from the Supreme Court.ā
Standing next to him, Abrego Garciaās wife, Jennifer, wiped away tears as the senator shared her husbandās comments about missing his family.
Much uncertainty remains about the future of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, after Van Hollen was presented with a carefully staged opportunity to meet with him in El Salvador on Thursday. The Maryland senator said that Abrego Garcia reported he'd been moved from a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison, CECOT, to a detention center with better conditions
Abrego Garcia's status after Van Hollen left was not known, and there was no indication that Van Hollenās trip pushed him any closer to release.
The case has become a . Democrats insist that President Donald Trump is overstepping his executive authority and disrespecting the courts; Republicans are criticizing Democrats for defending a man Trump and White House officials claim is an MS-13 gang member, despite the fact that he has not been charged with any gang-related crimes.
Van Hollen said that Abrego Garcia told him that he'd shared a cell with 25 prisoners and was afraid of many fellow inmates at CECOT before he was moved to another center in Santa Ana, El Salvador. He said that Abrego Garcia reported being treated well ā but noted that they were surrounded by government minders at the time.
Democrats are pushing, Republicans aren't budging
The fight over Abrego Garcia is as Democrats struggle to break through and push back during the opening few months of Trumpās second administration.
More Democratic lawmakers have said they will fly to El Salvador to push for Abrego Garciaās release, but the partisan pressure has yielded no results. President Donald Trump and El Salvadorās president, Nayib Bukele, have only dug in on keeping him out of the United States. That stance remained even after the U.S. Supreme Court called on the administration to .
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that Abrego Garcia will ānever live in the United States of America again.ā
Bukele posted images of Van Hollenās meeting with Abrego Garcia on Thursday and said that the prisoner āgets the honor of staying in El Salvadorās custody.ā Van Hollen said a Salvadoran government official placed other beverages on the table with salt or sugar on the rim to make it appear they were drinking margaritas. Van Hollen said neither he nor Abrego Garcia drank from the glasses, which in the photo Bukele posted were garnished with cherries.
After days of denying that he knew much about Abrego Garcia, Trump on Friday said he knew Abrego Garcia's prison record was āunbelievably badā and called him an āillegal alienā and a āforeign terrorist.ā
The president also responded Friday with a social media post saying Van Hollen ālooked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention.ā
More members of Congress are visiting the prison, or trying
Several House Republicans have visited in support of the Trump administrationās efforts. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that heād visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held. āI leave now even more determined to support President Trumpās efforts to secure our homeland,ā Moore wrote on social media.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials acknowledged in a court filing earlier this month that Abrego Garcia's deportation was an ā .ā The governmentās acknowledgment generated immediate uproar from immigration advocates, but White House officials have stuck with the allegation that heās a gang member.
The fight has also played out in contentious court filings, with from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.
The three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused Thursday to suspend the judgeās decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials and said the judiciary will be hurt by the āconstant intimations of its illegitimacyā while the executive branch āwill lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness.ā
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, nominated by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, wrote that he and his two colleagues ācling to the hope that it is not naĆÆve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.ā
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the United States whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes. Bukele's government has placed them inside the countryās just outside San Salvador.
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Mary Clare Jalonick And Adriana Gomez Licon, The Associated Press
