By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The US District Court is Now Ordering an Expedited Recovery

A US senator has met a man who Trump administration officials have acknowledged was deported in error from Maryland to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

After the meeting, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele also refused to release Ábrego García and said he would remain in the country's custody.

The White House has accused Ábrego García of being a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, which his lawyer denies.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen posted photos of his meeting with Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the administration has refused to return to the US despite an order from a federal judge.

Van Hollen (right) posted a photo of his meeting with Kilmar Ábrego García

Garcia, a Salvadoran national who had lived in the United States for over a decade with a valid work permit, was deported in March despite a court order halting his deportation. He was deported to El Salvador’s infamous mega-prison last month.

Despite his visit to El Salvador, Hollen claimed that El Salvador’s government restricted Garcia’s release, alleging that US financial support was effectively helping to fund his continued detention.

Garcia, a Salvadoran national who had legally resided in the United States with a valid work permit since 2019, was deported on March 15 despite a court order halting his deportation.

According to an Associated Press report, Garcia had spent roughly 14 years in the US, where he married, worked in construction, and was raising three children with disabilities.

'I miss you so much, ' says the wife of a Salvadoran deported by mistake

Thursday's (April 17, 2025) meeting came amid an escalating showdown between the US president and the courts on immigration, a day after a judge in another case said the administration could be held in contempt of court over deportation flights.

"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance," the Democratic senator posted on social media.

"I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return."

Thursday's (April 17, 2025) meeting came amid an escalating showdown between the US president and the courts on immigration, a day after a judge in another case said the administration could be held in contempt of court over deportation flights.

A US federal judge has given President Donald Trump's officials a one-week deadline to comply with his court order or risk being found in contempt of court, potentially setting up a historic clash between two equally powerful branches of government.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his ruling on Wednesday, April 16, that probable cause exists to hold the administration in contempt over its defiance of his order in the case involving migrants sent to a notorious El Salvador prison. The judge is giving the administration a chance to remedy the violation first before moving forward with such an action.

Boasberg said if the administration chooses not to remedy the violation, he will move forward with trying to identify the official or officials who made the decision not to turn the planes around. The judge said he would start by asking the government to submit written declarations in court, but he could turn to hearings with witnesses under oath or depositions.

Then, he could refer the matter for prosecution. Since Trump’s Justice Department leadership would almost certainly opt not to bring a case, the judge said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt case should the government decline to do so.

Abrego Garcia will remain in El Salvador’s custody following the meeting, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said in a Thursday night post on X.

Bukele continued mockingly: “Kilmar Ábrego García, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ and ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” The tweet ended with emojis of the US and El Salvador flags, with a handshake emoji between them.

The meeting came in the hours after Van Hollen said he was denied entry into a high-security El Salvador prison while he was trying to check on Ábrego García’s wellbeing and attempting to push for his release.

The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3km from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or Cecot, even as they let other cars go on.

“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.

A US federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a previous ruling ordering the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was expelled to his native country on March 15 during a Department of Justice (DOJ) roundup of hundreds of alleged Salvadoran and Venezuelan gang members in the US.

Abrego Garcia's deportation was carried out without a court hearing and despite a previous court order from a different case that barred his removal from the United States.

The Trump administration admitted that it made the error but has held firm on its stance that the DOJ has no jurisdiction to return Abrego Garcia because he is now in the custody of another country.

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree with that argument, and the three-judge panel ruled that the Trump administration must follow the original order to help facilitate Abrego Garcia's return issued by US District Court Judge Paula Xinis.

"It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all," wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in his ruling. "The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order."

Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Ábrego García back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.

Trump officials have said that Ábrego García, a Salvadorian citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that, and Ábrego García has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have seized on Ábrego García’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.

Van Hollen told reporters on Wednesday that he met with Vice-President Félix Ulloa, who said his government could not return Ábrego García to the United States.

“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr Ábrego García by driving to the Cecot prison,” Van Hollen said on Thursday.

Van Hollen said Ábrego García has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well-being,” Van Hollen said. He said Ábrego García should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.

“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.

New Jersey senator Cory Booker is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.

While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted on Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Ábrego García is being held. He did not mention Ábrego García but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”

“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.

Missouri Republican Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump, the facility now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans”.

The fight over Ábrego García has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants, whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes, and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele popular at home.

Human rights groups have accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment”. Officials there deny wrongdoing.

"Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear," Wilkinson continued.

Thursday's ruling marks the second time the 4th Circuit has rejected the Trump administration in the case. The DOJ could now attempt to seek emergency relief from the US Supreme Court.

 

 

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