Four other Democrats traveled to El Salvador to visit illegal immigrants and were suspected of members of the MS-13 gang who were deported by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Yassamine Ansari of Arizona, and Maxine Dexter of Oregon announced in a press release Monday that they had arrived at El Salvador. Four Democrats described Garcia as “a Maryland man of protected legal status illegally deported by the Trump administration.”
Their visit comes after Senator Chris Van Hollen of D-MD flew to El Salvador last week to visit Abrego Garcia, who had been transported from the country’s infamous mega prison in Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) in Tecolca to the previous day’s detention facility, Centro Industry.
Suspicion of MS-13 gang member deporting illegal aliens and transported from the infamous Salvador mega prison
This undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP)
In their press release, four Democrats said their trip was not funded by taxpayer dollars after R-KY, House oversight and accountability chairman James Kommer. They claimed that the removal of Garcia by the Trump administration “invited” or that he “vanished.”
Meanwhile, Trump scrunched the Abrego Garcia incident in another true social post Sunday.
“Their comrades in the radical mad Democrats and fake news media make Kilmer Armando Abrego Garcia a very sweet and innocent person. “Garcia has been revealed by two separate courts to be a member of the violent killer gangster MS-13.
“It’s mean and non-American for liberals and mainstream media to hate our country and become obsessed with protecting criminals rather than working to keep our borders, streets and families safe,” he added. “People who lie to Americans on behalf of violent criminals must be held responsible for the institutions and courts. Make America great again!”
Four Democrats have called for the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia to the US, claiming that his deportation constitutes a “constitutional crisis.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen will speak at a press conference after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, accompanied by Cesar Abrego Garcia, Cecilia Garcia and Jennifer Vasquez Sula. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Sen. Democrat Chris Van Hollen in the heart of Kilmer Abrego Garcia Saga responds to criticism from the grieving angel mom
“Donald Trump continues to rebel against the Supreme Court, but Kilmer Abrego Garcia is illegally detained in El Salvador after being illegally deported,” Garcia said. “That’s why we’re here. To invite immigrants and deport them without justification, reminding the American people is not the way we do things in America. We are asking the Trump administration to follow the Supreme Court decision and to have Kilmer and the other immigrants been mistakenly sent to the due process in Salvador in the United States.”
“Donald Trump and his administration run government-funded temptation programs. They illegally arrest, incarcerated, and deport innocent people in a zero due process. Kilmer Abrego Garcia is Trump’s latest victim,” Frost said in a statement. “As members of Congress, it is our responsibility to hold the President and the administration responsible for protesting the United States’ Constitution. Donald Trump and the Ice are not beyond the law. Today is Kilmer, but tomorrow is another person.
Senator Chris Van Hollen is welcomed by Washington Dulles International Airport supporters on Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
“My parents fled from Iran’s authoritarian regime, where people had “disappeared.” I sit here and refuse to let it happen. Completely ignoring Kilmer Abrego Garcia’s illegal abduction and due process, the unanimous Supreme Court decision is deeply intrusive.
“What happened to Kilmer Abrego Garcia isn’t just one family nightmare. It’s a constitutional crisis that angers each and every one of us,” Dexter said. “We will not rest while the due process is being discarded, and our constitutional rights will be ignored.”
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia, 29, to El Salvador, which he described in a court application as “administrative error,” and has since said it was up to El Salvador to whether Abrego Garcia will return to the United States, and that the federal court has directed the removal of Abrego Garcia.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice released a document detailing the domestic violence allegations of Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Abrego, included in the 2021 court filing.
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Additionally, the 2022 Homeland Security Investigation Report, obtained by Fox News, alleges that Abrego Garcia is suspected of participating in labor and human trafficking. The report said Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers attracted Abrego Garcia after a turn in 2022. Patrol officers found eight individuals in the car along with Abrego Garcia, who had just started driving three days ago.
Officers originally believed the incident was eligible for a trafficking case as no package was found inside the car, but officers eventually wrote down Abrego Garcia to drive with an expired license.
Diana Stancy, David Spunt, Rachel Wolf and Greg Norman of Fox News contributed to this report.
