Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tried—and failed—to meet with an alleged MS-13 gang member recently deported to El Salvador. The reason? The Salvadoran government refused to let him.
During a press conference from El Salvador, Van Hollen expressed frustration after officials there blocked his attempt to meet with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia—a Salvadoran national the Biden-era media portrays as a “Maryland father” with “protected status,” but whom the Trump administration has identified as a dangerous MS-13 leader and human trafficker.
Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador was centered around lobbying for Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien who was deported from the U.S. despite a 2019 court ruling that limited where he could be sent. Van Hollen insists there’s “no evidence” tying Abrego Garcia to MS-13 and has gone so far as to suggest the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to keep the man imprisoned at the nation’s maximum-security CECOT facility.
“I asked the vice president if Abrego Garcia has not committed a crime and the U.S. courts have found that he was illegally taken from the United States, and the government of El Salvador has no evidence that he was part of MS-13, why is El Salvador continuing to hold him in CECOT?” Van Hollen stated.
“And, his answer was that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT.”
Van Hollen said he met with El Salvador’s Vice President Félix Ulloa, asking for a personal visit with the detained man. But the vice president declined, saying Van Hollen would’ve needed to make “earlier provisions.” That didn’t sit well with the Maryland Democrat, who’s made it clear that getting Abrego Garcia released is now a personal mission.
“I promised them that I would do everything I could, to get him out of CECOT,” he declared. “And, I won’t stop trying… I may be the first United States Senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming.”
While Democrats and their allies in the media paint Abrego Garcia as an innocent man wrongfully deported, the Trump White House is not buying it. In fact, they’ve doubled down on their position that this individual is far from innocent.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt laid it out clearly in April:
“The administration maintains the position that this individual—who was deported to El Salvador, and will not be returning to our country—was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one,” she said.
“Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking.
“And, fact number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang—which this President has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Let that sink in. The man that Van Hollen is flying to another country to visit and advocate for has been described by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement as a terrorist gang leader involved in trafficking.
It gets worse. According to Fox News’s Bill Melugin, Abrego Garcia also had a restraining order filed against him in 2021 by his own wife, citing domestic violence. That didn’t stop Van Hollen or his allies in the media from calling him a victim.
As Leavitt bluntly stated in a recent post on X:
“Democrats are flying to El Salvador right now to demand the return of this violent illegal alien MS-13 gang member back into the United States.”
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, a strong Trump ally and a no-nonsense leader in the fight against gang violence, responded firmly during a recent Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked if El Salvador would return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., Bukele didn’t hold back:
“The question is preposterous,” he snapped. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Bukele’s message is clear: El Salvador isn’t a playground for American political games. If a dangerous gang member ends up in his country, he’s going to be locked up—not put on the next flight back to Baltimore.
This entire episode raises a disturbing question—one that many Americans are asking themselves more often these days: Whose side are Democrat leaders really on?
While President Trump and his administration are focused on keeping dangerous gang members out of the U.S., protecting American families, and securing the border, Democrats like Chris Van Hollen are flying overseas to plead for their release.
They’re not standing up for law-abiding citizens. They’re standing up for criminals with records of violence, gang affiliation, and even human trafficking.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer: President Trump is putting America first. His opponents? Well, they seem more interested in defending the very people he’s working to keep out.
