BURSTThe wife of a Maryland man deported to a Salvadoran prison described him as “abducted and disappeared” by the Trump administration while Congressional leaders on Wednesday vowed to pressure the Latin American country for his return.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), during a press conference with Kilmar Abrego Garcia's family, said he plans to push Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to release the father of three, who the Trump administration sent to prison there due to an “administrative error.”
“I will be writing to President Bukele to formally ask for the release of Kilmar, and we also want to know his condition,” Espaillat said, adding that he hopes to directly visit the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT in Spanish, to check on Abrego Garcia's well-being.
“There are no charges here and there are no charges in El Salvador, he has not been charged with a crime, and yet he sits in jail. We believe fundamentally that that is illegal, illegal here and illegal there,” he said.
Bukele is due in the U.S. next week to meet with President Trump.
A federal court ordered the Trump administration to secure Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. by Monday, but the Supreme Court agreed to intervene, temporarily blocking the lower court order amid further deliberations.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, gave an emotional account of her inability to reach her husband since he was sent to CECOT 28 days ago.
“This should have never happened,” Vasquez Sura said. “Kilmar should have returned home 50 hours ago.”
The lower court ruling ordering Abrego Garcia's return was a particularly scathing one, with U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis writing that the Maryland man’s protection from deportation by a court in 2019 meant his removal was “wholly lawless.”
“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” Xinis wrote.
“That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13 based on a report from a confidential informant, who claimed he was involved with the international criminal gang in New York. But Abrego Garcia’s family says he never lived in New York, contesting that he has any gang ties.
He also has no criminal record in the United States.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Abrego Garcia’s case speaks to the broader risks for others who may be swept up by Trump administration immigration enforcement.
“We are seeing people being disappeared across the United States. In some cases, they're visiting students. In some cases, there are other people who are legal immigrants,” he said.
“You're also standing up for all those other people right now who are under permanent threat from this lawless administration,” he said to Vasquez Sura.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) wrote a letter last week inquiring about Abrego Garcia’s condition but said he has yet to receive any information from the State Department.
“Let me get this straight, the government admits that they made an error. The lawyer who comes into court agrees with that and acknowledges it, and we know that that was bothering the Trump administration, because they punished him for having said the truth when he was in court,” Ivey said, referencing the suspension of the career Justice Department attorney who was fighting against Abrego Garcia’s release.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) also highlighted Bukele’s visit, calling him complicit in the Trump administration’s human rights abuses.
“I want to say one last word about El Salvador, a beautiful country, but a country with a leader who has become a mercenary, a mercenary who it looks like is complicit in violating human rights,” he said.
“Make no mistake, Kilmar and others who've been deported, some on shaky grounds under the Alien Enemies Act, are in gulags. They are in torture prisons. And President Bukele is responsible for that, and at some point he also must be held accountable.”