Sen. Chris Van Hollen confirmed Thursday night that he has met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man whom the Trump administration said it mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March.
"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. 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," Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote on X.
Images of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia were first posted online by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has rebuffed calls to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Bukele said on X after the meeting that Abrego Garcia will remain in El Salvador’s custody “now that he’s been confirmed healthy.”
President Donald Trump lashed out at Van Hollen Friday morning in a post on Truth Social, saying the Democratic senator "looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention."
At an Oval Office meeting with Trump on Monday, Bukele argued that he didn't "have the power to return him to the United States."
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the same day that the United States would provide a plane for Abrego Garcia to travel back to the country should El Salvador allow his release, framing the decision as being solely in Bukele's hands.
In a statement Thursday night, the White House called Van Hollen's efforts in support of Abrego Garcia "disgusting" and said Trump will "continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans."
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday to push for Abrego Garcia's release after the Trump administration did not demonstrate any efforts to "facilitate" his return, despite a Supreme Court ruling last week requiring just that.
The legal battle continued Thursday, when a federal appeals court rejected an effort by the administration to put the requirement on hold. In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel said the administration was trying to assert "a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”
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Van Hollen, who represents the state where Abrego Garcia lived before he was sent to El Salvador, has called the Trump administration’s resistance to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States an attempt to “cover up” his wrongful deportation.
He has met this week with human rights groups, local embassy staff members and top Salvadoran officials, including Vice President Félix Ulloa.
Before his meeting with Abrego Garcia, Van Hollen said Thursday that he was denied entry to the prison where Abrego Garcia is being detained: a terrorism confinement center referred to as CECOT.
Van Hollen said he tried to enter the facility alongside Chris Newman, the lawyer representing Abrego Garcia’s wife and mother, to “check on the health and well-being of Kilmar” but was promptly denied entry.
“We were stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3 kilometers from the CECOT prison,” Van Hollen told reporters. “We were told by the soldiers that they’d been ordered not to allow us to proceed any further than that point.”
During a meeting with Ulloa on Wednesday, Van Hollen said his requests to speak with Abrego Garcia, in person, virtually or by phone, were denied.
Ulloa also denied a request from Van Hollen that day to facilitate a phone call between Abrego Garcia and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who says she has not spoken to him since he was transferred to the Central American facility.
Sura said Thursday night that Van Hollen's meeting gave her hope.
“My children and my prayers have been answered. The efforts of my family and community in fighting for justice are being heard, because I now know that my husband is alive. God is listening, and the community is standing strong," she said in a statement.
Several Maryland officials wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday demanding “verifiable proof that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is alive, healthy and safe.”
“It has now been over a month since Mr. Abrego Garcia was illegally deported by federal authorities in direct violation of a court order, and during that time, his family has received no meaningful confirmation of his health,” the officials wrote.
Abrego Garcia first entered the United States in 2011 and was later protected from deportation by a 2019 court order barring him from being sent back to El Salvador.
The United States began sending hundreds of undocumented immigrants to El Salvador in February after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an agreement with the Salvadoran government to "accept and detain deportees from the United States of any nationality."
Bukele at the time called the agreement an opportunity for the United States to "outsource part of its prison system" in "exchange for a fee."
The two countries reached an agreement, for $6 million, to imprison deportees the Trump administration says are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the street gang MS-13.
On Monday, Trump told Bukele he wants to increase the flow of people being sent to prisons in El Salvador and urged him to build more facilities.
