Maryland deportee told senator he had been in isolation in El Salvador prison

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported by the Trump administration, reported having been traumatized inside a maximum-security prison in El Salvador before being transferred to another detention facility, where he remains in isolation.

The Maryland Democrat, who traveled to El Salvador to press for Abrego Garcia’s release and ended up meeting with him in San Salvador, said that Abrego Garcia had been transferred nine days ago from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, to a lower-level facility in Santa Ana.

“He said that the conditions were better at this new detention center, but he was still in a total blackout,” Van Hollen said in an interview before arriving back in Washington. “No news from the outside world. Can’t speak to anybody at all.”

At a news conference at Dulles International Airport after returning, Van Hollen said that Abrego Garcia had told him that during his nearly three weeks at the maximum-security prison, “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.”

During their meeting Thursday evening, Abrego Garcia shared details with Van Hollen about his initial arrest and his time at CECOT, which El Salvador’s government says holds some of the most dangerous criminal gang members.

Abrego Garcia described having been detained and taken to Baltimore, where he had asked to make a phone call but had been denied. He was then taken to a detention facility in Texas before being handcuffed and shackled, put on a plane with blacked-out windows with other deportees and eventually deposited at CECOT.

There, he was placed in a cell with around 25 other prisoners, according to Van Hollen.

“He said that he felt very sad to be in a place that’s meant for criminals,” Van Hollen said in the interview, referring to Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who entered the United States illegally but was given a deportation reprieve in 2019. “That’s not who he is.”

The account came as a partisan battle over Abrego Garcia’s case continued to rage. President Donald Trump and his team have portrayed the deported man as a dangerous gang member and have ridiculed Democrats for objecting to his removal. The White House has insisted that Abrego Garcia will not be allowed back into the United States, despite a Supreme Court order that the Trump administration must facilitate his return.

Van Hollen and other Democrats have railed against the administration for depriving Abrego Garcia of due process and defying the court’s ruling.

In a social media post Friday, Trump mocked Van Hollen, saying he “looked like a fool” for flying to Central America.

At the airport following his return, Van Hollen said that the administration’s efforts to demonize Abrego Garcia were an attempt to distract from its refusal to adhere to the rule of law, and from the principle that everyone living in the United States — even those who are not citizens or who are accused of crimes — should have constitutional rights.

“This case is not only about one man, as important as that is,” Van Hollen said. “It is about protecting fundamental freedoms and the foundational principle of due process that the Constitution guarantees to everyone who resides in the United States.”

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador indicated in a social media post acknowledging the meeting between Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia that his government would not heed the calls to return the man to the United States.

After more than a month with no access to television, internet or media of any kind from beyond the walls and gates of the prison, Abrego Garcia had been heartened to learn of the attention his case had garnered in the United States, Van Hollen said.

“I told him that everyone from his family to his labor unions, to people through Maryland and in fact millions throughout the country were calling for him to have his full rights restored,” Van Hollen said. “He was clearly strengthened by the fact that people were fighting to ensure that his rights are protected.”

The Bukele administration’s brief release of Abrego Garcia for the meeting with Van Hollen was a remarkable about-face.

From the moment the senator arrived in El Salvador, Bukele’s lieutenants had blocked his requests to visit Abrego Garcia. Vice President Félix Ulloa rejected an in-person appeal from Van Hollen on Wednesday. The next day, a blockade manned by military personnel was erected in the middle of a road, to cut off the senator’s route to CECOT.

But Van Hollen’s persistence led to something of a breakthrough. Just hours after being stopped by the military, he got word that he would be allowed to see Abrego Garcia after all. The two met on the terrace of a luxury hotel in San Salvador.

Bukele’s decision to orchestrate the meeting appeared to be an attempt to appease growing concerns about the case without conceding ground. Van Hollen said the Salvadoran president’s team had deceptively stage-managed the encounter, at first suggesting that it take place beside the hotel’s swimming pool. Aides placed beverages that looked like cocktails in front of the two men, to be visible in photographs.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!” Bukele wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the meeting.

On Friday, Van Hollen said that neither he nor Abrego Garcia had touched the drinks.

“They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big, fat lie,” he told reporters.

Abrego Garcia, who wore a collared shirt and baseball hat for the meeting, was returned to prison immediately afterward.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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