Democratic US senator Chris Van Hollen said that on Wednesday the authorities in Salvador refused him access to Kilmar Abry Garcia, Salvadoran incorrectly deported and detained in a notorious prison in this country.
Van Hollen came to the Nation of Central America on Wednesday morning, saying that he would try to meet with older officials of Salvadoran to secure the edition of Abry Garcia.
But Van Hollen told the reporters the Vice President of Salvador, Felix Ulloa, told the senator that he could not allow a visit or a phone call from Abry Garcia.
Van Hollen, who is a member of the US Foreign Relations Committee, said that Ulloa also told him that Salvador did not release Abry Garcia, because the United States paid him to keep him in imprisonment.
“Why should the United States government pay the Salvador government for blocking a man who was illegally abducted from the United States and did not commit a crime?” Said Van Hollen.
The El Salvador government did not immediately answer at the request for a comment on Van Hollen's visit.
“Administrative error” in the USA
After Washington recognized Abrego Garcia, he was deported because of the “administrative error”, the US Supreme Court upheld the decision of Judge Paula Xinis, who “facilitated” the return of Abry Garcia.
At a meeting with US President Donald Trump in the White House on Monday, the president of Salvador, Nayib Bukele He had no plans To return Abry Garcia. Earlier on Monday, the United States Internal Security Department said in court that “there is no power to” restore Abry Garcia.
On Tuesday, Xinis said that she would not stop the government with contempt for the court, but she said that there was no evidence that Trump's administration tried to recover Abry Garcia and said that she would not tolerate “games or a great game”.
Together with Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration deported hundreds of people, mainly Venezuelans, who are said to be members of the gang, to El Salvador on the basis of the Act on the enemies of aliens of 1798 without presenting evidence and without a trial.
No government published the names of imprisoned men, and men had no access to lawyers or any contact with the outside world since they arrived at prison, said lawyers.
In March, after the judge said that flights transporting migrants prosecuted on the basis of the Act on alien enemies should return to the United States, Bukele wrote on X that it was too late, as well as paintings showing men from the plane in the dark.
Allegations of contempt possible for US officials: judge
On Wednesday, the federal judge said that Trump's administration officials could face the prosecution of court for the contempt for the court for violating his order last month, arresting the deportation of Venezuelan migrants in accordance with the Act on foreign enemies, and war law.
Abrego Garcia, 29 years old, left El Salvador at the age of 16 to avoid gangs related to violence, his lawyers said. In 2019, he received a protective decision to continue his life in the United States. According to the lawyers of Abry Garcia, who denied that he had never been accused of any crime who denied the charges of the US Department of Justice that he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang.
During the press conference, Van Hollen emphasized that neither the Salvador government nor the Trump administration presented any evidence that Abry Garcia was a member of the gang.
US Secretary of Defense Pete HegeSeth was to meet on Wednesday with the Minister of National Defense Salvador, Rene Merino, in the Pentagon.