Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., revealed new details about his meeting this week with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, including that he had been traumatized by his imprisonment in El Salvador.
Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia — a Maryland man who the Trump administration says was mistakenly deported last month — on Thursday after his previous efforts to meet with him were denied by Salvadoran officials.
The Maryland senator held a news conference at Washington Dulles International Airport on Friday upon his return from El Salvador, where he told reporters that he met with Abrego Garcia for more than 30 minutes and informed him of the national attention on his case, which the senator said Abrego Garcia was unaware of.
“His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted,” Van Hollen said. “He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes.”
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Van Hollen told reporters that Abrego Garcia has “experienced trauma,” and framed his deportation as an “illegal abduction.”
Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia told him he was “OK” and had been able to see a doctor for a “blood pressure condition.”
The senator said Abrego Garcia told him he was no longer being housed at CECOT, a terrorism confinement center, and had been transferred more than week ago to another detention center in Santa Ana, El Salvador, “where the conditions are better.”
“But he said despite the better conditions, he still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world,” Van Hollen said.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that thinking of members of his family “gave him the strength to persevere,” the senator said, adding that the Maryland man spoke several times about his 5-year-old son, who has autism and was in the car with him when he was detained, the senator said.
Van Hollen was joined at his news conference by Abrego Garcia’s wife, mother and brother, who he said had been “desperate to learn” if Abrego Garcia was still alive.
Images of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia on Thursday were first shared by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who appeared to downplay concerns about Abrego Garcia’s confinement in a social media post asserting he was “sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”
Van Hollen on Friday denied that any alcoholic beverages were consumed during the meeting, and suggested Bukele’s post was an attempt to “set up” Abrego Garcia and him.
The senator said Bukele’s aides brought two glasses that “looked like margaritas” to the table where he and Abrego Garcia were meeting, and insisted on having the encounter filmed on video cameras.
“They actually wanted to have the meeting by the side of the pool,” Van Hollen said. “I mean, this is a guy who’s been in secret. This is a guy who’s been detained. They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big lie.”
Representatives for the El Salvador Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday evening.
Van Hollen told reporters he believes Bukele’s decision to allow him to meet with Abrego Garcia after previously denying his requests was due to public pressure.
“They were feeling the pressure because while I was in El Salvador, we had two major press conferences that included the local press who reported on this,” Van Hollen said.
