Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he didn’t visit Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to defend him against accusations that he was part of MS-13 but rather to stand up for due process rights that he insists have been trampled in President Trump’s deportation push.
Mr. Van Hollen said Sunday that he didn’t ask Mr. Abrego Garcia when they met Thursday evening in El Salvador whether he was a member of MS-13 because “I know what his answer is.”
The Maryland Democrat said the onus is on the Trump administration to prove Mr. Abrego Garcia’s gang ties in a court of law.
“What he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being 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 on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“If we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America,” he said.
On the same CNN show, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was not asked about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s possible ties to MS-13 but accused the Trump administration of harassing him for political purposes.
“They have picked out this case and this man because it is about a subject they want to keep in the news,” the Minnesota Democrat said. “So, it is even more cynical than just flaunting the law.”
“I think it is important for people to realize they are following the law in other cases. They just decided not to follow the law with this guy,” she said, attributing the Trump team’s actions to an effort “to distract people from the fact that our economy is in a tailspin because of them.”
The legal battle over Mr. Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant who lived in Maryland, has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to send such migrants out of the country.
Mr. Abrego Garcia was deported last month under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 after the Trump administration deemed him an “MS-13 terrorist” and deported him to El Salvador.
The White House and its allies in Congress have made it clear that Mr. Abrego Garcia will not be permitted to reenter the country.
They dismiss the critics who say the Trump administration has admitted in court that he was wrongly deported to El Salvador, albeit on an “administrative error,” but has refused to comply with a Supreme Court order for the administration to “facilitate” his return to the U.S.
The Trump administration and Homeland Security Department officials said Mr. Abrego Garcia’s initial claims blocking his deportation in 2019 were “fake,” and they tied him to human smuggling operations.
In 2022, the Tennessee Highway Patrol stopped Mr. Abrego Garcia, while he was facing a deportation order, with eight people in his vehicle.
Mr. Abrego Garcia told the trooper they were traveling from Texas to Maryland. None of the other people had luggage, and all listed Mr. Abrego Garcia’s home address as their own.
He was let off with a warning for driving with an expired license.
On Thursday, the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland said Mr. Abrego Garcia was identified as a member of MS-13 based on his clothing, tattoos and information from a confidential source.
David Hogg, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, flatly denied any link between Mr. Abrego Garcia and MS-13.
“This was not an MS-13 gang member, and you damn well know it,” Mr. Hogg snapped at former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus during a panel discussion on ABC’s “This Week.”
“He was not. The administration admitted this was wrong. In America, we have due process, and we are a land of law and order.”
Mr. Priebus countered that the White House, multiple court findings and “every intel community agency say he is a member of MS-13.”
Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller sought to poke holes in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s claim that his life would be at risk if he was sent to El Salvador because a gang had threatened to kill him.
Describing the story as “fake,” Mr. Miller said the gang that posed the threat, Barrio 18, or 18th Street, no longer exists in El Salvador.
News emerged last week that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife accused him of being violent when she tried to obtain a domestic violence protection order against him in 2021.
Mr. Abrego Garcia came into the United States illegally sometime around 2011 and was ordered deported in 2019. However, the immigration judge ruled that he could not be sent to his home country of El Salvador because he faced the threat of torture or death.
Another immigration judge found that Mr. Abrego Garcia likely was a member of MS-13 based on police findings.
Democrats initially questioned the Trump administration’s assertion that Mr. Abrego Garcia had ties to MS-13, but they have started to focus more of their criticism on his Fifth Amendment due process rights.
Mr. Van Hollen said Sunday that he was not interested in the details of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s gang history because such matters should be left to the courts to decide.
He called Mr. Trump’s mention of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s purported gang ties an attempt 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,” he said.
Rep. Tom Emmer, Minnesota Republican, threw cold water on that idea.
He said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele would decide what to do with Mr. Abrego Garcia.
“I see a citizen of El Salvador who is now in El Salvador,” Mr. Emmer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “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,” he said.
Ms. Klobuchar said federal courts should appoint an outside prosecutor to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court if the White House does not facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return.
“We are getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis,” she said. “Why do I think we are not full-blown in one? Because the judges are standing up and doing their job.”
