Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, made a personal request on Tuesday to President Trump to return a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported last month and remains imprisoned in El Salvador, accusing Mr. Trump of “gross violations of the Constitution and due process rights” in Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s case.
In the lengthy letter, Mr. Van Hollen scolded Mr. Trump for willfully ignoring a Supreme Court decision instructing his administration to “facilitate” the man’s return.
Justice Department lawyers said not long after Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal that his deportation had been an “administrative error.” Mr. Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador last week and was allowed to meet briefly with Mr. Abrego Garcia after the government arranged for him to be temporarily released from a Salvadoran detention center.
Mr. Van Hollen gave Mr. Trump a detailed recounting of his meeting with Vice President Félix Ulloa of El Salvador, noting that their conversations made clear that his country had “no independent legal basis” to imprison Mr. Abrego Garcia and had done so only because of a financial deal with the Trump administration to hold any deportee it sends.
“The Trump administration’s whole argument is this sham claim that El Salvador is a sovereign country and it’s up to them whether or not Abrego Garcia gets released,” Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview. “But the government of El Salvador says exactly the opposite.”
In the letter, Mr. Van Hollen wrote that he believed that Salvadoran officials would release Mr. Abrego Garcia if the Trump administration requested it.
“Obviously, your administration could say El Salvador was no longer contractually obligated to imprison Mr. Abrego Garcia. Then El Salvador can release him, and Attorney General Bondi can, as promised, send the plane,” Mr. Van Hollen wrote, referencing remarks Ms. Bondi made during an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador earlier this month.
But Ms. Bondi later told reporters that Mr. Abrego Garcia would not be returned, asserting that Salvadoran officials were unwilling to release him.
“He is not coming back to our country,” she said during a news conference at the Justice Department. “President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story.”
Mr. Van Hollen argued that the implications of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s plight extend far beyond one individual.
“While Mr. Abrego Garcia is at the center of this case, its consequences impact the due process rights of everyone who lives in America,” he wrote. “If your administration can strip away the constitutional rights of one man in defiance of court orders, it can do it to all of us.”
