Maryland Democrat meets with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador

By Morgan Rimmer and David Culver, CNN

(CNN) — Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, Thursday night.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” the Maryland Democrat said in a post on X, sharing a photo of the two seated together at a table. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

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

“Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” Bukele said. The Salvadoran president posted several photos earlier of Van Hollen shaking hands with Abrego Garcia and the two seated alongside a third man.

In a swipe at Democrats critical of Abrego Garcia’s incarceration in El Salvador’s maximum-security prison, CECOT, he wrote: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

CNN has reached out to Van Hollen and Bukele’s offices for more information. The senator declined to provide additional details to CNN en Español about the meeting as he departed a hotel in the capital San Salvador Thursday night, adding that a full readout would be given Friday.

The US lawmaker traveled to the Central American nation on Wednesday in a push for the man’s release. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, and in the weeks since, his case has become a flashpoint in the fight over the Trump administration’s hardline deportation push.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, celebrated the meeting on Thursday night.

“My children and my prayers have been answered. The efforts of my family and community in fighting for justice are beng heard, because I now know that my husband is alive. God is listening, and the community is standing strong,” she said in a statement.

Thursday night’s meeting came Van Hollen after earlier in the day said he was denied entry to CECOT when he tried to check on Abrego Garcia’s “health and wellbeing.”

He previously told reporters in San Salvador that he had been “stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about three kilometers” from the notorious CECOT prison, where he had driven with Chris Newman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia’s wife and mother.

Van Hollen said that denying Abrego Garcia access to his lawyers “is a violation of international law.”

“El Salvador is a party to the international covenant on civil and political rights. El Salvador has signed and ratified that covenant. And that covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,’” he said.

Van Hollen’s attempt to enter CECOT came a day after El Salvador’s vice president denied him access following an in-person meeting.

Salvadoran authorities have not formally charged Abrego Garcia, and are not bound by a strict timeline to do so, according to a high-level source close to Bukele, under the country’s ongoing state of exception, which suspends certain constitutional rights.

While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador and the Trump administration admitted in court documents he was deported there due to a clerical error.

In recent days, however, Trump administration officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported. US officials have alleged he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization – a claim his attorneys dispute and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward.

Van Hollen on Thursday again accused the US government of violating Abrego Garcia’s right to due process and emphasized that was his reason for traveling to El Salvador.

“I am not here to vouch for any particular set of facts or claims, but I am here to vouch for the judicial system in the United States, which guarantees individuals the right to due process,” he said.

Other Democratic delegations, he said, are “in the works now,” and while a Republican congressional delegation had recently been allowed to visit CECOT, Van Hollen said: “They did not ask to meet with Kilmar. That was not part of their mission.”

Van Hollen said he also met with the US Embassy team during his visit, as well as representatives from DHS, FBI, and DEA to discuss joint efforts between the United States and El Salvador to “crack down on transnational gangs like MS-13.”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Jose Alvarez , Maija Ehlinger, Alex Stambaugh and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

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