Senior Democratic leader and Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has spoken to reporters after a high-stakes trip to El Salvador, where he met Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man deported under President Donald Trump's administration.
Van Hollen met Abrego Garcia on Thursday during a visit to that country, after repeated efforts to speak with him had been blocked by Salvadoran authorities.
Speaking at Washington Dulles International Airport after his return on Friday, Van Hollen said the 30-minute meeting was Abrego Garcia’s first contact with anyone outside the prison since his deportation.
"His conversation with me was the first communication he'd had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted," said Van Hollen, who called the deportation an "illegal abduction."
"He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatised by being at CECOT (Terrorism Confinement Center) and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways," he added.
He said Abrego Garcia, who was born in El Salvador but has lived in the US since childhood, was unaware of the national attention on his case.
Van Hollen added that he had seen a doctor for a blood pressure condition, but remained emotionally shaken.
"We need to bring Mr. Abrego Garcia home to protect his constitutional rights to due process," Van Hollen said, emphasising broader implications.
"This is about protecting the rights of everybody who resides in the United States."
Supreme Court orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to United States by midnight Monday.
'Protecting the constitutional rights'
Van Hollen rejected the Trump administration's claims linking Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang, saying the accusations should be brought in court, not spread "over social media."
Trump officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported and said in recent days that because Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national, he belongs in El Salvador.
US officials have also he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organisation – a claim his attorneys dispute.
A Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
US President Trump and President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to return him to the United States, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return.
