Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Thursday that soldiers blocked him from entering a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where the erroneously deported Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia has been held for more than a month.

The Maryland Democrat arrived in the Central American country Wednesday in an effort to help bring Abrego Garcia, whom the Justice Department admitted in court was deported in error, back to the United States, or at least check on his wellness. He met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa that day, who denied his requests to either visit or speak on the phone with Abrego Garcia.

Van Hollen told reporters Thursday afternoon that he again tried to make contact with Abrego Garcia that morning.

A U.S. immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 finding that sending Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, back to his home country would put him in grave danger.

Accompanied by Chris Newman — the lawyer for Abrego Garcia’s wife and his mother — Van Hollen said they tried to enter Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, but soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint about three kilometers from the prison.

“We were told by the soldiers that they’d been ordered not to allow us to proceed any further than that point,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen said that since Abrego Garcia was sent to CECOT, he has not spoken with anyone outside of the prison walls, and “this inability to communicate with his lawyers is a violation of international law.”

The senator pointed out that El Salvador is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“That covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,’” he said.

Van Hollen also said he met with the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and they discussed “the full range of important bilateral relations between the United States and El Salvador.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Republicans have criticized Van Hollen for making the trip, repeating the accusation that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.

Representatives for the White House and DHS did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.

Appeals court slams administration’s inaction

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s case continues to work its way through U.S. courts as a flashpoint conflict between two branches of government that has led to the precipice of a constitutional crisis.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court panel dismantled the administration’s latest appeal, saying the government had done “essentially nothing” to attempt to return Abrego Garcia in compliance with last week’s Supreme Court order.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the executive branch was due deference in conducting foreign policy, but that the administration’s inaction in seeking Abrego Garcia’s return amounted to defiance of a judicial order.

The unanimous ruling was written by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan. The other two judges, Robert Bruce King and Stephanie Thacker, were nominated by Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” the panel wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

The appeals ruling responded to the government’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ order this week for the Trump administration to offer evidence on how it has sought to help with Abrego Garcia’s release from CECOT.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” — but stopped short of requiring — his return to the United States.

In unusually frank language, the Fourth Circuit panel warned Thursday the conflict between the executive and judicial branches threatened the foundation of U.S. government.

“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” the court asked. “And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present.”

Near the end of the order, the panel urged the administration to obey the judicial branch.

“We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos,” the judges wrote. “This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

Neither country taking action

The Fourth Circuit panel pointed out that the leaders of both the United States and El Salvador claimed they had no power to return Abrego Garcia.

“We are told that neither government has the power to act,” they wrote. “The result will be to leave matters generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.”

During a White House visit this week, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

The Trump administration has admitted in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation stemmed from an “administrative error.” The administration continues to accuse him of being part of the gang MS-13, despite no charges or convictions of any criminal offenses against him, including gang-related crimes.

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

Protesters outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt rally on April 4, 2025, in support of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was deported to El Salvador in an “administrative error,” calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Wednesday he was denied a meeting with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador-born Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in his home country notorious for human rights abuses.

The Maryland Democrat met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa in the Central American country in an effort to help bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States. Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, but a U.S. immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 finding that sending him back to his home country would put him in grave danger.

After meeting with Ulloa, Van Hollen briefed reporters on the visit and said the Salvadoran vice president rebuffed his requests for contact with Abrego Garcia.

“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia and he said, ‘Well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo),’” Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador, referring to the mega-prison.

“I said, ‘I’m not interested, at this moment, in taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia,’” Van Hollen said.

“He said he was not able to make that happen. He said he’d need a little more time. I asked him if I came back next week, whether I’d be able to see Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said he couldn’t promise that either,” the senator added. 

Van Hollen said he was also denied a phone or video call with Abrego Garcia to ask how he was doing and report that information to his family. 

The senator said he would contact the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and request they ask the government of El Salvador to connect the two of them via phone, following a suggestion from Ulloa.

Van Hollen’s visit came a day after a federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to offer evidence on how it has sought to help with Abrego Garcia’s release from CECOT.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” — but did not require — his return to the United States. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele also said Monday that he would not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

The Trump administration has acknowledged in court that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error.”

The administration accused him of being a member of the gang MS-13. He has not been charged or convicted of any criminal offenses, including gang-related crimes.

Van Hollen, noting that the Trump administration “illegally abducted” Abrego Garcia, said he “won’t stop trying” to get the wrongly deported man out of the prison and back to Maryland and predicted others would follow.

“I can assure the president, the vice president, that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more, and there will be more members of Congress coming,” he said.

Administration responds

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media Wednesday a copy of a restraining order Abrego Garcia’s wife sought against him in 2021 “claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm.”

In response, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told Newsweek she had a disagreement with him, but that things did not escalate and she did not continue with the civil court process. 

Late Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made a statement on the case, displaying the restraining order, repeating the accusation Abrego Garcia is a gang member and objecting to media references to him as a “Maryland father.”

“There is no Maryland father,” she said.

Patty Morin, the mother of a Maryland woman slain by a Salvadoran immigrant in the country without legal status, also appeared at the briefing and spoke in favor of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation actions.