Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Sunday he did not ask Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia whether he was a member of MS-13 when he met with him in El Salvador because “I know what his answer is.”
The Maryland Democrat said the “details” of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang ties should be argued in the courts, saying President Trump needs to “put up” the evidence proving he is an MS-13 gang member or “shut up.”
Pressed on whether he asked Mr. Abrego Garcia about his alleged gang ties, Mr. Van Vollen said, “I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is.
“What he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was … in prison because he committed no crimes and that goes to the heart of this issue because he is being denied his due process rights,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “If we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America,” he said.
The Maryland Democrat traveled to El Salvador this week to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant whom the Trump administration has accused of being an “MS-13 terrorist” and deported despite a judge’s ruling that he could not be sent back to the country for safety reasons.
Mr. Van Hollen said Mr. Trump has played up Mr. Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang ties because he wants to “change the subject.”
“The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights,” he said. “They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts.”
The legal battle over Mr. Abrego Garcia has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to ship illegal immigrants out of the country.
Mr. Trump has relied on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected Venezuelan and MS-13 gang members to the maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Republicans have defended Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal and said it is up to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to decide what happens next with him.
Rep. Tom Emmer, Minnesota Republican, said Sunday that Mr. Abrego Garcia received due process when his request for asylum was rejected.
“I find it very interesting that your network and others like the senator from Maryland are doubling down on an illegal alien when they won’t talk about all the Americans that have been harmed by illegal aliens,” Mr. Emmer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I see a citizen of El Salvador who is now in El Salvador,” he said. “The United States can’t go in and extract people from countries. This is going to be up to the president of El Salvador, not the Trump administration.
The Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants being held in Texas, saying the administration should not “remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who has ordered the government to bring Mr. Abrego Garcia back, has discounted the MS-13 ties, saying that evidence wasn’t presented in her courtroom this year.
The Trump administration says Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife accused him of beating her in 2021, and in 2022, he was stopped in what authorities have characterized as a potential human smuggling incident.
An immigration judge had previously found that Mr. Abrego Garcia likely was a member of MS-13. Another immigration judge ordered him deported, but also found that because he claimed to have been threatened by the gang Barrio 18 when he had previously lived in El Salvador, he could not be sent back to that specific country.
“The Trump administration has admitted in court he was wrongfully abducted and taken to El Salvador and yet they refuse to follow the U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return,” Mr. Van Hollen said.
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
