El Salvador refuses to let Democratic senator visit or speak with Kilmar Abrego Garcia: ‘We have an unjust situation here’
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said he was denied a meeting with a wrongfully deported Maryland father imprisoned in a brutal Salvadoran jail following Donald Trump’s refusal to return him to the United States.
The Maryland senator traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday to help secure Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where he faces the prospect of indefinite detention.
But he was denied a meeting with Abrego Garcia, and Salvadoran officials would not let the senator or Abrego Garcia’s family speak with him by phone, he said.
El Salvador has recently allowed Republican members of Congress inside CECOT, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was filmed in front of a row of men crowded behind bars.
The country denied that same access to the senator who represents the state where Abrego Garcia has been living with his wife and children.
“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Abrego Garcia, and he said you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT,” Van Hollen told reporters from San Salvador on Wednesday.
“I said, ‘I’m not interested in this moment of taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet Mr. Abrego Garcia,’” he said. “He said he was not able to make that happen.”
El Salvador’s vice president Felix Ulloa said he “couldn’t promise next week either,” according to Van Hollen.
“So I asked if I could get on the phone, either video phone or just a phone, and talk with Mr. Abrego Garcia,” he said.
That was also denied, he said.
The vice president also said he wasn’t sure whether Abrego Garcia’s wife or family members would be able to speak with him, according to Van Hollen.
“We have an unjust situation here,” he said.
White House communications director Steven Cheung called Van Hollen a “complete disgrace to his office” and said he “should be thoroughly shamed for his disgusting actions.”
“Chris and his bedwetting friends have shown more concern and sympathy for an illegal MS-13 gang member than victims of horrific migrant crimes,” he wrote.
