US Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, said on Monday that authorities in El Salvador had denied him access to Kilmarn Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was wrongly deported and is being held in the country's notorious prison, Reuters reported.
Van Hollen arrived in the Central American country this morning saying he would seek to meet with senior Salvadoran officials to secure Abrego Garcia's release.
But Van Hollen told reporters that El Salvador's Vice President Felix Ulloa told him he could not authorize a visit or conversation with Abrego Garcia.
Van Hollen, who is a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Ulloa also told him that El Salvador would not release Abrego Garcia because the U.S. was paying to keep him in prison.
"Why would the U.S. government pay the government of El Salvador to imprison a man who was illegally abducted from the U.S. and committed no crime?" Van Holen said.
The government of El Salvador did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Van Holen's visit.
After Washington acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an "administrative error," the US Supreme Court upheld Judge Paula Xinis' order ordering the government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return.
In a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, El Salvadoran President Najib Bukele said he had no plans to return Abrego Garcia.
Earlier on Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security said in a court filing that it "does not have the authority to forcibly" return Abrego Garcia.
Xinis said Tuesday that she would not immediately hold the government in contempt of court, but said there was no evidence that the Trump administration had tried to reinstate Abrego Garcia.
Along with Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, whom it says are gang members, to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 without presenting evidence and without trial.
No government has released the names of the men who have been detained, and the men have had no access to lawyers or any contact with the outside world since arriving at the prison, lawyers said.
A federal judge said today that officials in the Trump administration could face criminal contempt charges for violating his order last month halting deportations of Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act.
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Abrego Garcia, 29, left El Salvador at age 16 to escape gang violence, his lawyers said. He was granted a protective order in 2019 to continue living in the U.S. According to Abrego Garcia's lawyers, who have denied the Justice Department's allegations that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, he has never been charged or convicted of any crime.
During a press conference in San Salvador, Van Hollen emphasized that neither the Salvadoran government nor the Trump administration had presented any evidence that Abrego Garcia was a gang member.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is scheduled to meet with El Salvador's Minister of National Defense Rene Merino at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
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