Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., suggested the U.S. was on its way to “tyranny” on Wednesday during an interview from El Salvador while on a trip to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, comparing the Trump administration to an authoritarian government.
“This is like taking away people’s freedom. That does not sound like a conservative idea to me. That is something that, of course, authoritarian governments engage in. And it’s a very fast road to tyranny if we don’t all stand up against it,” Van Hollen told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Garcia, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant, was deported to the El Salvadoran megaprison “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT) last month, and officials acknowledged in court his deportation was an administrative error, although now some top Trump officials say he was correctly removed and contend he’s a member of the notorious MS-13 gang. Both a federal court and the Supreme Court have ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his release and return to the U.S. for proper deportation proceedings.
Van Hollen announced that he was going to El Salvador to visit Garcia this week, and other Democratic lawmakers announced they planned to visit him as well.
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“It’s also about, as you say, about the Trump administration trying to deprive individuals in the United States of their liberty without any due process,” Van Hollen said of the situation.
The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from coming back to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us.”
Van Hollen told reporters on Wednesday that he was not able to visit Garcia because he needed to make “earlier provisions” to go to the prison.
“I asked the vice president [of El Salvador] if I came back next week, whether or not I could go visit Kilmar, and the answer was no, he couldn’t guarantee that. I said, look, I may be the first member of Congress here, first senator, but I can assure you, more will be coming, and you cannot continue to keep this man locked up in this worst prison in El Salvador, and one of the worst in the hemisphere, when he hasn’t committed a crime,” Van Hollen told Maddow.
Van Hollen said he was going to continue to pursue the case and said he asked El Salvador’s vice president to open the prison gate to let Garcia out.
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“Because you may remember it, the White House, the president of El Salvador said, well, you know, we can’t smuggle Kilmar back into the United States. I said, you don’t have to smuggle him back to the United States. We know you can’t do that,” Van Hollen said. “Just open the prison door and attorney general Pam Bondi said the United States would send a plane down here. And if she doesn’t, at least he would be free for now in El Salvador, as we work to find a way to get him back into the court system and due process in the United States.”
Fox News’ Peter Pinedo, Breanne Deppisch and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
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