Four House Dems in El Salvador to Secure Release of 'Wrongfully Deported' Abrego Garcia
"Trump and ICE are not above the law. Today it's Kilmar, but tomorrow it could be anyone," said Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida.
Four Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives landed in the capital of El Salvador on Monday morning, kicking off a trip aimed at pressuring the Trump administration to comply with a recent Supreme Court ruling and facilitate the retrieval of a man who federal officials have admitted was wrongly sent to a Salvadoran megaprison in mid-March.
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported," said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, one of the lawmakers in El Salvador, in a Monday statement. He added that the group is there to "to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America."
Garcia, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, and Maxine Dexter of Oregon are traveling to El Salvador days after Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled there and successfully met with Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who in 2019 received a ruling from an immigration judge that he could not be deported to his native El Salvador because he was at risk of gang persecution there.
Last week, Garcia and Frost said the purpose of the trip was to visit the megaprison, known as CECOT, and check on Abrego Garcia and others who were deported. Abrego Garcia is now being held at a different prison in Santa Ana, El Salvador, according to court filings from the U.S. Justice Department.
The Trump administration has attempted to paint Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record in the United States, as dangerous, alleging that he is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia's family and lawyers maintain he is not a gang member.
U.S. President Donald Trump and "his administration are running a government-funded kidnapping program," Frost said of the administration's deportation of Abrego Garcia and others who were deported.
"Trump and ICE are not above the law," he added, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Today it's Kilmar, but tomorrow it could be anyone."
Frost and Garcia had requested that the head of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), grant them authorization to conduct an official congressional delegation, but Comer refused, meaning the trip will not be funded by the committee's budget.
Frost called the denial of the request "shameful" on X on Sunday evening. "Good thing I don't need Comer's permission to get on a plane," he wrote.
On March 15, the Trump administration of deported over 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador after invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used authority that gives the president broad powers to deport noncitizens. Several Salvadoran nationals were also deported under Title 8 removal orders.
The deportations by the Trump administration kicked off a fierce legal battle.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court intervened to prevent the deportation of more Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the White House can deport people under the law, but that migrants must be given an opportunity to contest their removals in court districts where they are being detained in the United States.
