Since being deported to El Salvador last month, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has had very little contact with the outside world — something that Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen tried to change.
Last week, Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant who the Trump administration has admitted was deported from Maryland in error. But the White House has since doubled down on claims that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, with Stephen Miller, a top Trump domestic policy adviser, saying, “This was the right person sent to the right place.”
Van Hollen was initially denied access to Abrego Garcia. But officials in El Salvador eventually relented, and arranged a meeting at the senator’s hotel. Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen about his experience at El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a massive prison, and his traumatic isolation from the outside world.
Abrego Garcia’s detention has pushed the United States to the brink of a constitutional showdown. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the US — an order that the White House has shown little intention of heeding.
“This goes to the heart of protecting people’s rights and what bullies do and what authoritarian leaders do,” Van Hollen told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram. “And what Donald Trump is doing is beginning by picking on the most vulnerable and refusing to bring his case in the courts, and when the courts rule, ignoring them.”
Van Hollen talked to Today, Explained about what he heard from Abrego Garcia, and why he believes this case has pushed the United States into a constitutional crisis. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Make sure to listen to the whole thing.
Why was it so important to you to go down to El Salvador to meet with this one man?
I wanted to let him know, number one, that I was bringing greetings from his family who haven’t heard from him since he disappeared. He was locked away. No one was able to reach him — not his wife, not his mom, not his lawyers. In fact, until this moment, I’m the only one who’s communicated with him before or since. So I wanted to, number one, see if he was alive.
But I also wanted him to know that his case was something that was meaningful to every American who cares about the Constitution. And I wanted to ask the government of El Salvador to stop being complicit with the Trump administration in this illegal scheme. So it was to defend the rights of this person because if we don’t defend the right of this individual, we do threaten rights for everybody who lives here.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has allied himself with President Donald Trump, has called Abrego Garcia a terrorist, and said he would never return him. How hard did that make it for you to actually sit down with him?
My view is this: The courts of the United States have said that he was illegally taken away. When I met with the vice president of El Salvador, I asked him if they had any evidence that he had committed any criminal acts. And his answer was, “No. We’ve got him in our jail” — and he was originally at CECOT which is one of the most notorious prisons in Latin America — “we’ve got him there because the United States is paying us to do it.” That was his answer.
And I said, “Do you really want to be part of this illegal scheme with Donald Trump in violation of constitutional rights in the United States?” His answer was, “We got to deal with them, they’re paying us and if the Trump administration tells us, we’ll let them go. But we’re being paid, we got a contract. And so we’re gonna keep them locked up.”
And so how did you end up getting to meet him?
Well, I asked the vice president. He said no. I said, “If I come back next week, can I meet with him?” No. “Well, maybe I could get him on the phone?” No.
So the next day, I decided not to give up. I drove towards CECOT prison, about three kilometers out, and I was waved to the side of the road by soldiers. I said, “Why are you stopping me?” They said, “You can’t go to see Abrego Garcia.” And I said, “Do you know how he’s doing?” They said no. And I say, “Why can’t I go?” They said, “We have orders.”
So then we had some events in El Salvador with local press. And they did relent. And I think that even Bukele recognized that it was a bad look for El Salvador to not allow anybody to meet or talk with this guy, to even know whether he was alive. As I was sort of getting ready to go to the airport on the way home, we got a call and I ended up meeting with him.
First and foremost, he told me he missed his family and I told him how much his family missed him. And he said that thinking of them is what gave him strength every day. He said he had had a traumatic experience — that was his word, “traumatic.”
He said he tried to make a phone call from the Baltimore Detention Center. They wouldn’t let him do it. And then of course he landed in this really awful CECOT prison. So he was traumatized. He said he hurt, he felt he was in pain, and said he hadn’t committed any crimes.
And he asked me to pass his message of love back to his family. I informed him — because he’d been in a total news blackout — his case was now representative of the fight for constitutional rights and due process for everybody who lives in America, and that a lot of people were working to get him out of prison in accordance with the Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.
What was the prison like?
The first place he went was CECOT and he said he was not in fear for safety from the prisoners in his cell. He said, if I recall right, there were about 25 prisoners in his cell. He said he was scared and traumatized by other prisoners in other cells, and these cells are packed. I mean, they sometimes have more than 100 prisoners, and he says that they would call out to him and taunt him and that did make him feel very much at risk.
He told me that he’d been moved to this other prison and detention center in Santa Ana. He told me he’d been there about eight days. This is when I met with them, which were sort of better conditions, but still, and I wanna stress this, still no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world and to learn anything about what’s happening. That’s a violation of international law to deny somebody the ability to talk to their lawyer or family. So that’s where he is sitting as we speak.
When you guys met up, there were some photos released and it looks like you had margarita glasses or something in front of you. Where did that come from? Where exactly was this meeting?
They brought him to my hotel. At first they wanted to stage the meeting by the pool, to create this impression, to deceive people, thinking that he was in some tropical paradise when he’d been in one of the worst prisons in El Salvador.
During our conversation, the government folks from Bukele instructed the waiters to set two taller-looking glasses on our table, making it look like margaritas. I have no idea what’s in them because neither of us touched them, but they had a little cherry on top and they had either salt or sugar on the rim.
I think it shows the lengths that Bukele and Trump will go to deceive the American people about what’s happening, right? Here’s a guy, illegally abducted, ends up in the worst prison — and they want to create this impression that, “Hey, he’s just in paradise.”
Republicans are leaning into this message that Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. What do you make of that?
You know, my point on all of this, Sean, is that they should bring those facts before the court and Trump should not just be spending all his time on social media. Put up or shut up in federal court. And I wanna quote the federal judge in this case: She said that the Trump administration had presented, quote, “no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity.” Period. Put up or shut up in court. I’m not vouching for the man. I’m standing up for his rights because all of our rights are at risk if we don’t.
You’re not only saying we have to focus on constitutional rights. You’re saying this situation with Abrego Garcia is a constitutional crisis. You say constitutional crisis, [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom says distraction. How do we reconcile those two assessments of this very serious situation?
This is a fundamental constitutional issue, and it is a crisis because the Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration has to help facilitate his return to the United States.
I also do just want to briefly quote what the Fourth Circuit said. This is a three-judge panel, and the chief judge who wrote it is a guy called Judge Wilkinson — he was appointed by Reagan. Here’s what he says: “It is difficult in some cases to get to the heart of the matter. But in this case, it’s not hard at all. 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.”
So this is not a distraction. This goes to the heart of protecting people’s rights and what bullies do and what authoritarian leaders do. And what Donald Trump is doing is beginning by picking on the most vulnerable and refusing to bring his case in the courts, and when the courts rule, ignoring them. So this is a very important moment to protect everyone’s constitutional rights. It’s not about one person. It’s about all of us.
