By JADE TRAN
Capital News Service
WASHINGTON – Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, joined by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Maryland, demanded answers Wednesday about the mistaken deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Van Hollen said a Maryland judge determined there were “no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention or removal.” He added that the judge found Abrego Garcia’s deportation “wholly lawless” and warned of the dangers he now faces in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
“JD Vance lied through his teeth when he said that Kilmar had been convicted of a crime in the United States. Absolutely false,” Van Hollen said at a Capitol Hill press conference. “The Vice President should apologize to the family — and he should do it now.”
That concern was echoed by Ivey, who criticized the administration’s inaction to bring Abrego Garcia home.
“I think it’s time for them to put up or shut up. Bring him back, let’s get him in court, have the day in court,” Ivey said. “They sent him to one of the most notorious prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
On March 15, immigration authorities deported Abrego Garcia to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador, which lawmakers described as “heinous” and known for torturing inmates. Abrego Garcia fled the country at age 16 to escape threats of gang violence, murder and extortion. A U.S. immigration judge granted him legal protection from deportation in 2019, a protection that has since been reversed under the Trump administration.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, stood beside lawmakers and signs reading “BRING KILMAR HOME,” next to a picture of him holding one of his children, with tears in her eyes.
“It’s been 28 days since I last saw my husband. Since his children hugged him, since his mother has kissed him, since his brother has talked to him,” she said.
Courts have ruled that his deportation should have never happened, she said, and that her “life partner” should have been home “50 hours ago.”
She addressed her husband directly, looking straight into the cameras: “If you can hear me, I’m still fighting for you — your brother, your mother, your children. We’re still fighting for you, and we’re not gonna give up hope.”
Rep. Juan Vargas, D-California, thanked Vasquez Sura for her tears, saying her words and emotions cut to the heart of a wider national crisis.
“Your tears were joined with the tears of many people in my district in San Diego, and they form a stream. And throughout this country, they form a river, a river appears because of what’s happening to families,” Vargas said.
He compared Abrego Garcia’s disappearance to his own experiences during the 1980s in El Salvador as a Jesuit, when violence often led to people vanishing without a trace.
“I never thought that something like that would happen in my own country, where masked people that work for the government would come abduct people off the street,” he said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, echoed that concern, saying the Trump administration is trying to wash its hands of what happens after deportation.
“They’re framing us to believe that the U.S. government can pick somebody up off the street, with no due process, ship them to El Salvador — and that’s the end of our story,” Raskin told reporters after the press conference. “We can’t accept that.”
A letter sent Tuesday night by a group of 25 senators, led by Van Hollen, called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to answer seven specific questions about how DHS handles immigrants with legally protected status. The request follows a Supreme Court decision that temporarily paused a lower court’s order for ICE to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Not all criticism was directed at the Trump administration.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-New York, and chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he plans to send a letter directly to the Salvadoran government asking for Abergo Garcia’s release ahead of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s upcoming visit to meet with President Donald Trump on April 14.
“We don’t know his condition, the family deserves to know his condition, and if they don’t tell us, we will visit the prison ourselves to go visit him,” Espaillat said.
When asked if this effort would make a difference, Espaillat responded by saying that hearing Vasquez Sura speak should certainly make a difference in the nation.
“Public sentiment in this nation, as Abraham Lincoln said right in the middle of the Civil War, is everything,” Espaillat said. “Jennifer’s story could move mountains, not just bring him back home.”
Lawmakers warned that Abrego Garcia’s deportation reveals a pattern of stripping immigrants of not only their legal protections, but their worth. They added that Republican leaders are fueling a narrative that dehumanizes the immigrant community and takes away their due process.
“You owe this man’s family answers, and you owe the American people an explanation for why the Constitution seems optional in their own country,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-New York, said.
