US senator met wrongly deported Salvadoran man at hotel, calls for release

Washington: Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and being held in a prison in El Salvador, at a hotel after initial requests to meet with him were denied.

Van Hollen, who represents the state of Maryland, said Abrego Garcia was brought to his hotel before Van Hollen left the country on Thursday after attempting to go to the notorious CECOT prison for gang members where Abrego Garcia had been held.

The senator told reporters at a press conference at the Washington, D.C., area Dulles Airport that he and the lawyer for Abrego Garcia's family were pulled over by soldiers and told they were not allowed to proceed any further.

Later in the afternoon, El Salvadoran officials brought Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland, to the hotel where Van Hollen had been staying.

The case has pitted a defiant Trump administration against the courts, including the Supreme Court, and fanned the prospect of a constitutional conflict after Washington acknowledged he was deported because of an administrative error.

"He said he was traumatized by being at CECOT," Van Hollen said he was told by Abrego Garcia.

The senator on Thursday had posted on X an image of himself in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia, dressed in a collared shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. Abrego Garcia told the senator that eight days ago, he was moved to another detention center in Santa Ana, two hours north of CECOT, where conditions were better but he still was unable to make contact with the outside world.

Van Hollen said that the Trump administration, which has refused to adhere to a Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, and El Salvador's government need to be held accountable for being complicit in illegally holding him.

"This case is not only about one man, as important as that is. It is about protecting fundamental freedoms and the fundamental principle in the Constitution for due process that protects everybody who resides in America," he said.