Van Hollen tells Trump his argument for not bringing back Abrego Garcia is a 'farce'

Sam Janesch, The Baltimore Sun on Apr 29, 2025

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BALTIMORE — U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Tuesday made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump in the continuing case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, telling him in a lengthy letter that the Salvadoran government has contradicted his administration’s statements about which government is in charge of facilitating his release and return to Maryland.

The Maryland Democrat outlined in detail his conversation with Vice President Félix Ulloa, of El Salvador, when he was in the country earlier this month to meet with Abrego Garica.

Ulloa repeatedly told Van Hollen that it was up to the U.S. government to determine if he would be released from prison — not the government of El Salvador, as Trump and his administration have indicated.

Ulloa repeatedly said that “the ball is in your court” and that the reason El Salvador is imprisoning Abrego Garcia, despite the Trump administration’s admission that he was wrongfully detained and deported, is because of the financial arrangement in which the U.S. is paying El Salvador to detain people, Van Hollen wrote.

“We have a deal with the U.S. government. They send people. We host them. They pay. And that’s it,” Ulloa said, according to Van Hollen.

The letter, in part, appeared to be spurred by Trump’s comments about the case during an interview with Time magazine last week, which followed Van Hollen’s trip the week before.

Van Hollen quoted from the interview in the letter to Trump, pointing out that the president said he had not asked El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to return Abrego Garcia. Trump told Time that it was up to his administration’s lawyers to determine how to handle the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

Though Trump added that “bringing him back and retrying him wouldn’t bother me,” he also reiterated claims he and his administration have made about Abrego Garcia’s alleged connections to the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have not presented evidence in court supporting that claim, a judge said.

Van Hollen told Trump in the letter that his approach has been “shameful” and that his administration’s legal defense for not following court rulings is a “farce.”

“So your Administration should put up or shut up in court,” Van Hollen wrote, repeating a line he has said frequently in interviews since Abrego Garcia was deported. “I am not vouching for the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, I am vouching for his rights.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

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