San Salvador (AFP) – A delegation of Democratic lawmakers arrived in El Salvador on Monday in a new push to secure the release of a wrongly deported US resident at the center of a mounting political row. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent back to his country and remains imprisoned despite the Supreme Court ordering the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the man’s return to the United States.
“I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona said on social media. “We want to make sure that Kilmar is still alive. We want to make sure that he has access to counsel,” added Ansari, who was accompanied by fellow US House Democrats Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost, and Maxine Dexter.
“Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process,” Frost wrote on X. “We must hold the Administration accountable for these illegal acts and demand Kilmar’s release. Today it’s him, tomorrow it could be anyone else,” the Florida representative added.
The visit comes days after Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen managed to meet with Abrego Garcia, though only after a considerable effort. Van Hollen, who represents Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family have lived for years, accused the Central American nation of staging a photo of him supposedly sipping margaritas with Abrego Garcia.
Trump’s administration has paid El Salvador President Nayib Bukele millions of dollars to lock up nearly 300 migrants it says are criminals and gang members — including Abrego Garcia. The 29-year-old was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime authority.
The Trump administration admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error,” and the Supreme Court ruled that the government must “facilitate” his return. But Trump has since doubled down, insisting Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member. Bukele, who was hosted at the White House last week, said he did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia.
The migrant’s supporters note he had protected legal status and no criminal conviction in the United States. “My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people were ‘disappeared’ — I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here,” Ansari said in a statement.
“What happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not just one family’s nightmare — it is a constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us,” said Dexter, a congresswoman from Oregon. Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that he was initially imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison for gang members, but was later transferred to a jail in the western department of Santa Ana.
© 2024 AFP
