SAN SALVADOR (AP) — Four House Democrats have traveled to El Salvador to call attention to the plight of a man the Trump administration deported to a Salvadoran prison and has refused to help return — even after the Supreme Court ruled that it was the government's duty to do so.
Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Robert Garcia of California arrived Sunday in the Central American nation to investigate the condition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had lived in the United States for more than a decade. The Trump administration deported him, a move that administration officials have said in court filings was done in error.
But despite a Supreme Court ruling that ordered the Trump administration to help facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, the administration has said it has no power to bring him back, a position being scrutinized by federal courts as potentially in violation of judicial rulings.
In a news conference Monday in El Salvador's capital, the Democratic representatives and Abrego Garcia's lawyer said they were in El Salvador “demanding his safe return home." The group said they hoped to continue to pressure authorities for his release, and that their petition to meet with Abrego Garcia was denied.
"Part of what the Trump administration does is they do so much that they try to make sure people forget — forget about them breaking the law, forget about them completely ignoring the Supreme Court," Frost said. “We’re not going to be the last members of Congress and senators that are here to make sure that he’s released and that our country is following our laws.”
The trip comes after one last week
The quartet’s trip comes after Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador last week and met with Abrego Garcia and Salvadoran officials. Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland with his wife and three children, who are American citizens, before he was deported on March 15.
Abrego Garcia's protected legal status prohibited him from being deported to El Salvador. He was deported on one of three planes filled with migrants accused of being gang members.
Frost said the four representatives were in El Salvador to “build off the work” of Van Hollen and that they were inquiring about where Abrego Garcia was being held and under what conditions.
Chris Newman, a lawyer representing the deportee, added that his primary concerns was Abrego Garcia's access to counsel.
“We know nothing of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts since the staged photo op on Thursday with Senator Van Hollen,” Newman said. "We demand to immediately know where he is and to have access to him."
The White House press office issued a statement Monday that said the past week “has shown Americans everything they need to know about Democrats’ priorities.”
The White House accused the representatives of "picking up their party’s mantle of prioritizing a deported illegal immigrant MS-13 gang member over the Americans they represent.”
Rep. Garcia said he and Frost sent a letter last week to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requesting that an official delegation go to El Salvador to investigate Abrego Garcia's condition and push for his return, but received no response. Ansari said more Democrats would be traveling to El Salvador in the coming days and weeks.
Justice Department lawyers said in court last week that they have no power to advance Abrego Garcia’s return because he is in a foreign country’s custody. Administration officials also claimed in public comments that Abrego Garcia was engaged in human trafficking and terrorism and therefore correctly deported. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that if Abrego Garcia were to return to the U.S., “he would immediately be deported again.”
Van Hollen unsuccessfully lobbied the Salvadoran government for Abrego Garcia's return. He told NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the United States is facing a constitutional crisis if the Trump administration does not follow the Supreme Court's order to push to bring Abrego Garcia back.
It's a warning Democrats are increasingly amplifying. Rather than debate President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policy or the merits of the administration's invocation of national security to carry out deportations, Democratic lawmakers are zeroing in on the issue of due process, with some noting that the Supreme Court and lower court federal judges found Abrego Garcia was deported without a proper hearing.
Ansari said she finds it “extremely alarming” that Trump officials seem to have no regard for due process.
“Even with all of the illegal actions we’ve seen over the last couple of months, I think this is the one that terrifies me the most when it comes to the future of our democracy," she said in an interview.
Similar concerns were echoed by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote in the court’s ruling in Abrego Garcia’s case: “The government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene."
Republicans have been going, too — for a different reason
Several House Republicans have visited El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, the prison where Abergo Garcia is being held, and lauded the facility for what they view as El Salvador's tough-on-crime policies. Republican senators and governors have defended Abrego Garcia's detention as part of a broader crackdown on illegal immigration. But at least one Republican senator called his deportation a mistake.
“The administration won’t admit it. But this was a screw-up,” said Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, on NBC's “Meet the Press.”
During a meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office, Trump remarked that “homegrown” lawbreakers should be deported to prisons in the Central American country and urged Bukele to “build about five more places” like the notorious penitentiary where Abrego Garcia is being held.
Congressional Republicans have so far shown little interest in negotiating the dispute between the president and the judiciary. Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers of Congress, have little leverage to pressure the White House. But Abrego Garcia's case has become both an alarming and galvanizing case inside the party.
Democrats "have the power to draw attention to this issue, to keep the pressure up," Ansari said. "That’s why you know some of us are going, and so many members will be going. Because this is about the future of our democracy and the future of due process as American citizens.”
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Brown reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.
Marcos Aleman And Matt Brown, The Associated Press
