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After being challenged by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the Trump administration is in a panicked, full-court press to defend their abduction of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia and send him to a dangerous prison in El Salvador.
Van Hollen visited El Salvador on Wednesday to check on Abrego Garcia’s wellbeing and possibly secure his release. He was denied access to the man, who has a wife and two children at home, who has not been charged with a crime, and whom a judge granted protection from deportation in 2019.
“U.S. courts have determined that he was illegally abducted from the United States and now finds himself in the most notorious prison in El Salvador,” Van Hollen said in a video statement.
“The Trump Administration can lie all they want, but the Court said they failed to show he was part of MS-13,” Van Hollen wrote in a post on the social media site Bluesky, alongside the video. “This is about bringing home a man they ADMIT should never have been abducted. I won’t rest until then.”
Democrats in the House have backed Van Hollen’s trip, and on Tuesday, two members of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia of California and Maxwell Frost of Florida, requested that the committee’s chair, Republican James Comer, authorize an official congressional delegation to visit the prison where Abrego Garcia is being detained.
Republicans have expressed outrage at Democrats pushing to reunite the family.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt—who has a long track record of lying to the public—claimed without evidence on Wednesday that Abrego Garcia is a gang member and “foreign terrorist.”
According to court documents, the claim that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the MS-13 gang is based on hearsay from a police detective who was later suspended.
To further emphasize the supposed threat from immigrants, Leavitt has also hosted Patty Morin, the mother of a woman killed by an undocumented immigrant. The right has often invoked the Morin case to justify its bigoted anti-immigrant positions.
Clearly frustrated that some in the media aren’t participating in the attack on immigrants, Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr complained and threatened Comcast over subsidiary MSNBC’s choice not to air the briefing—an editorial decision protected by the First Amendment. MSNBC, which airs via satellite and cable, is generally not subject to FCC licensing requirements—something that the head of the FCC should know.
In a Fox News appearance on Wednesday night, Attorney General Pam Bondi ratcheted up the rhetoric, arguing that Abrego Garcia is a “terrorist” and one of the MS-13 gang’s “top” members. She offered no evidence to corroborate those claims, and Abrego Garcia has been denied due process to answer such claims in court.
Sebastian Gorka, the administration’s “counterterrorism czar” (who has ties to far-right extremists), claimed in a Newsmax interview on Wednesday that advocating for due process rights for Abrego Garcia could be seen as “aiding and abetting” a “terrorist” and grounds for federal charges.
On Thursday morning, Republican Rep. Dan Meuser admitted that the Maryland man is not a terrorist but argued that “he’s a potential terrorist” and a “terrorist-watchlist person,” justifying the man’s abduction.
Republicans are under pressure with the situation they created. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was angrily confronted on Tuesday by residents of his red-state constituency over the administration’s actions on Abrego Garcia.
The Republican meltdown is coming as opinion polls show the public uncomfortable with the Trump administration’s handling of immigration, a typically strong issue for the Republican Party.
A new poll from Civiqs for Daily Kos finds that 51% of registered voters somewhat or strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled immigration. Additionally, 63% of those surveyed said they oppose deporting migrants who are legally in the U.S.
Democrats are pushing to restore due process, and Republicans have responded by being overly defensive and reflexively dishonest—all while losing more and more public trust.
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