1 of 4 | Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., speaks to the media Wednesday in Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador. He said he wasn’t able to his see his constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is detained in the Terrorism Confinement Center. Photo by Rodrigo Sura/EPA-EFE
April 16 (UPI) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the United States will not return a wrongly deported Maryland man, Kilmar Ábrego García, as Sen. Chris Van Hollen was denied a visit with his constituent in an El Salvador prison.
“He is not coming back to our country,” Bondi told reporters Wednesday morning, despite a Supreme Court opinion demanding that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his trip back.
Van Hollen, a Democrat, traveled to the Central American nation with the intention of meeting Ábrego García, 29, at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where he is being held with others deported from the United States. The Trump administration said there was an administrative error in deporting him.
Van Hollen said he met with the country’s vice president, Felix Ulloa, who told him it would not be possible for him to speak with Ábrego García in person or on the phone.
“He said, ‘Well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT,'” Van Hollen said afterward at a news conference. “I said, I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet with Mr. Ábrego García. He said he was not able to make that happen.”
Van Hollen said he offered to come back next week to meet with him, but the vice president “said he couldn’t promise that either.” The vice president also said he could not arrange for Ábrego García’s family to speak to him by phone.
“We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about Ábrego García,” Van Hollen said.
And the senator said he wanted to know why he is being held if the U.S. courts and El Salvador found no evidence he was a member of the MS-13 gang and didn’t appear before a judge in the United States.
“His answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT,” the senator said.
Van Hollen sent a letter to Salvadoran Ambassador Milena Mayorga requesting a meeting with Bukele to discuss the issue on Monday.
On Wednesday, Van Hollen was criticized by Patty Morin for not concentrating on her daughter Rachel’s murder in his state by a fugitive from El Salvador while hiking.
She was a “special guest” at the White House briefing on Wednesday with reporters.
“To bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen, why does that person have more right than I do or my daughter or my grandchildren?” she said.
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez was convicted on Monday in the August 2023 slaying of Morin. She was killed along a hiking trail in Bel Air.
Patty Morin, who joined Trump on campaign stops in Arizona and Pennsylvania during the election, said the senator “did not call our family; he did not give condolences. There was no action… in Maryland none of the Senators did anything to help search for the murderer of my daughter.”
The press office asked: “where was his concern for Maryland constituents put at risk by the many other illegal immigrants allowed to roam free until now.” It showed photos and gave information, which is a “tny sample of the criminal illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in Maryland in recent days.”
Monday, President Donald Trump met this week with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, 43, who likewise indicated he will not return Ábrego García, claiming he did not have the power to do so.
“How can I return him to the United States?” Bukele said Monday in the Oval Office. “Like if I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”
Ábrego García was taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He is married to an American citizen and migrated at age 16 to work and was granted residency in 2019.
“President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” said Bondi, claiming Ábrego García is an “illegal alien” who has been “living illegally” in the United States.
The U.S. Justice Department, meanwhile, has failed to provide evidence on the claim that Ábrego García, who has not been charged with a crime and has held protected immigrant status since 2019, is a member of the MS-13 gang in a claim his attorneys and family say is false.
On Wednesday night, in an attempt to counter the findings of the court, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release stating Ábrego García is in fact a member of MS-13.
As evidence, it states he was arrested with two other alleged members of the gang and had “roles of cash and drugs” on him.
The presidents on the various currency denominations had their ears, mouth and eyes covered, which the DHS said “is a known MS-13 gang symbol of see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil.”
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the father of three’s return home to Maryland but stopped short of ordering it. The court also said he should have had a hearing before a judge before being deported.
Bondi said Wednesday if Bukele “wanted” to send back Ábrego García, the United States “would give him a plane ride back.”
“There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none,” she added.
“He’s from El Salvador. He’s in El Salvador, and that’s where the president plans on keeping him.”
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday posted a copy of a protective order on X that his requested against her husband in 2021.
“Kilmar Ábrego García had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” HHS posted. “According to court filings, García’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm. This MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.”
Later Wednesday, Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she had filed a temporary protective order against him four years ago but the couple had worked through their issues.
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process,” she said in the statement to CNN. “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect.
“That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation,” Vasquez Sura said. “Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
