Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said on Sunday he did not bother to press Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant deported from the United States and sent to prison in his home country of El Salvador, to answer whether he is or has ever been a member of MS-13 when the two met last week.
The Democrat, who contends that Abrego Garcia is a “constituent” of Maryland who was unlawfully deported, told CNN’s Dana Bash he did not ask “because I know what his answer is: what he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being in prison because he has committed no crimes, and that goes to the heart of this issue because he’s being denied his due process rights.”
BASH: “Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS-13 gang, and did you ask him point blank?”
VAN HOLLEN: “What Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject. The subject at hand is that he and his administration are… pic.twitter.com/QlXZZANLXf
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) April 20, 2025
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old living in Maryland, was detained and deported to El Salvador last month despite a 2019 court order prohibiting him from being sent back to the country. His legal team has been fighting the federal government in a high-profile court to secure his return to the United States.
The Trump administration accuses Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13, which has been designated as a foreign terror organization, and has released documents to substantiate the affiliation. Among them was a 2019 interview sheet in which police wrote that a confidential informant identified Abrego Garcia as a member of the gang. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys deny the claim.
After Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia on Thursday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted photos of the encounter on X. One photo showed there were tattoos on the knuckles of Abrego Garcia’s left hand, a possible sign of gang membership.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture”, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!🍹 pic.twitter.com/r6VWc6Fjtn
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 18, 2025
President Donald Trump then posted on social media a photo of himself holding a photo of a hand. It was titled “Kilmar Abrego Garcia MS-13 Tattoo” and showed a close-up picture of a hand with a cannabis leaf, smiley face, cross, and skull tattooed across four knuckles. In his post, Trump alluded to the 2019 immigration case and a 2021 restraining order that shows Abrego Garcia was accused of beating his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who now says they worked through the incident.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person.’ They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such “a fine and innocent person.” They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found… pic.twitter.com/31sNr2k1SK
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2025
Van Hollen insisted that the president is trying to distract people and dared the Trump administration to bring up the gang affiliation claim in Abrego Garcia’s ongoing deportation case.
“He and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts they need to put up or shut up in the courts,” Van Hollen said. “Let me tell you, I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate as to what federal district Court Judge Zennis said about these allegations by the Trump administration, quote, ‘No evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court.’ That’s where to litigate this. It’s been litigated in many other places, so I’m not going to get into the details because the whole purpose of our court system is for them to adjudicate these things, not for Donald Trump to go off on social media.”
