SAN SALVADOR — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Thursday evening in El Salvador, coming face to face with the wrongly deported man after two days in the country pushing for his release.
The Democratic senator posted a photo of the meeting on X but did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.
A Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. U.S. President Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that 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 his return.
“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 they met or what will happen to Abrego Garcia. El Salvador’s President Nayib 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.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said in a statement released by an advocacy group that “we still have so many questions, hopes, and fears.”
Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have seized on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. A federal appeals court said Thursday in a blistering order that the Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. “ should be shocking. ”
Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending the prisoner and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House officials have said that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.
More Democrats have said they will travel to El Salvador to argue for Abrego Garcia’s release, but it’s unclear if the trips, or Van Hollen’s meeting, will have any effect on his status. When asked by reporters Thursday afternoon if he believed Abrego Garcia was entitled to due process, President Donald 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.” A spokeswoman for El Salvador’s presidency said she had no further information on the meeting or Abrego Garcia,
Van Hollen’s meeting came hours after he said he was denied entry into the high-security Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where Abrego Garcia is being held. 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.
