CNN —
Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Friday detailed his recent meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador described being “traumatized” by his time at the country’s notorious CECOT prison and has since been moved.
“He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways,” Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC, after landing back in the US.
The US senator said Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, told him he had been moved from the maximum-security prison to another detention center nine days ago.
“He’s no longer at CECOT,” Van Hollen said. “He’s at a different prison which is pretty far outside of San Salvador.” The senator shared that the new facility is in Santa Ana where “conditions are better” but did not provide additional details.
Van Hollen also claimed the Trump administration has committed to paying El Salvador $15 million to detain prisoners, including Abrego Garcia. He claimed that $4 million has been “paid out” so far.
The senator traveled to the Central American nation earlier this week in a push for the man’s release and met with him Thursday – after initially being denied access to the maximum-security prison. Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, and his case has been at the center of the fight over the Trump administration’s hardline deportation push.
Van Hollen said the case has broad significance for the due process rights of all Americans.
“This case is not just about one man, it’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America,” he said. “If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.”
While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador and the Trump administration admitted in court documents he was deported there due to a clerical error.
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return from CECOT, and the Supreme Court largely endorsed that order.
Top Trump officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported and argued in recent days that because Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national, he belongs in El Salvador. US officials have also alleged he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization – a claim his attorneys dispute.
“He’s a citizen of El Salvador, he’s in El Salvador, he’s home,” Trump border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Thursday on “The Source.” “He’s an MS-13 member, which is now classified as a terrorist, so we removed the illegal alien MS-13 member who has a final order removal issued by an immigration judge to his homeland.”
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers maintain that he does not have ties to MS-13.
President Donald Trump’s administration has seized on Van Hollen’s visit in particular to swipe at Democrats critical of Abrego Garcia’s incarceration in El Salvador.
“Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Friday morning.
The White House was also quick to compare an image of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia with one of Trump meeting with Patty Morin, whose daughter was murdered by an undocumented El Salvadorian immigrant in 2023, in the Oval Office earlier this week.
“We are not the same,” the White House account posted on X.
The White House said on social media Friday that Abrego Garcia is not and will “never” return to the United States.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele similarly said in a Thursday night post on X, “Now that [Abrego Garcia has] been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
Van Hollen also addressed Bukele’s Thursday X post that Abrego Garcia had been “sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”
Salvadoran government officials, the lawmaker said, had placed the glasses on the table and the two men did not take a sip.
“When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table and I think maybe some coffee. And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice and I don’t know if it was salt or sugar around the top. But it looked like margaritas,” Van Hollen said.
He continued: “If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmar, it actually had a little less liquid than the one … in front of me to try to make it look — I assume — like he drank out of it. Let me just be very clear: Neither of us touched the drinks.”
This incident is “a lesson into the lengths President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on,” Van Hollen added.
The senator, further describing the meeting, said Abrego Garcia said he missed his family and that his loved ones keep him going.
“He said that thinking of you, members of his family, is what gave him the strength to persevere, to keep going day to day even under these awful circumstances,” Van Hollen said, adding that Abrego Garcia spoke “several times” about his five-year-old son who has autism and who was in the car when he was pulled over by immigration agents.
Recalling his first phone call with Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, following the meeting, Van Hollen said he conveyed to her that her husband told him “first and foremost, that he missed her and his family.”
“And as he said that, you could see a tear come down,” the senator added.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Aditi Sangal, Tori B. Powell and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
