PROVIDENCE – U.S. Sen. Jack Reed told a Jamestown town hall he would “absolutely” consider” going to El Salvador if it might help his Senate colleague Chris Van Hollen’s effort to secure the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongfully deported by the Trump administration.
Reed spokesman Chip Unruh told The Journal that the Rhode Island Senator talked to Maryland’s Van Hollen about how he might help bring home Abrego Garcia, a father of three. He pledged to “continue working with his colleagues to keep the pressure on and ensure justice is served.”
“He and Senator Van Hollen touched base this morning,” Unruh said. “As you know, Sen. Van Hollen is already on the ground in El Salvador and is seeking to visit with Mr. Garcia.”
Late this morning, Van Hollen posted this on X:
“I just landed in San Salvador a little while ago, and I look forward to meeting with the team at the U.S. embassy to discuss the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia. I also hope to meet with Salvadoran officials and with Kilmar himself. He was illegally abducted and needs to come home.”
Democrats support efforts to bring Abrego Garcia home
Other members of Congress have indicated they too may make the trip, including Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Florida, who described Garcia’s detention as a “kidnapping and illegal detention.” (Rhode Island’s two Congressmen have not yet responded to Journal inquiries if they too are considering making the trip.)
Asked during a town hall in Jamestown on Tuesday, April 16, if he would consider going to El Salvador, Reed said: “Absolutely. Chris Van Holland is going down. The gentleman is a Maryland resident and Chris is his senator, and Chris is a very talented and decent gentleman.”
“He might not want a lot of people around him,” but “we’re reaching out to Chris. We’re finding out what his plans are, what we can do.”
On April 8, Rhode Island Senators Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse – who was headed home from an unrelated trip on Wednesday – were among the Senate Democrats who sent a letter to acting Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem and Tedd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, demanding explanations for “the action which the Administration admitted in a recent court filing was an ‘administrative error.’”
“It is unacceptable that anyone would be deported without proper due process, especially where an immigration judge has granted the individual protected status that explicitly prohibits his return to El Salvador. We demand that the Administration bring Mr. Abrego Garcia home immediately,” they wrote.
Among they questions they posed: “In the past, DHS and ICE worked to quickly return people to the U.S. who wereerroneously deported. Why is DHS and ICE no longer following these well-established procedures and practices?”
And this: “Vice President J.D. Vance and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt have both claimed that Mr. Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, but the government was unable or unwilling to provide any evidence to substantiate that claim to the court. Please provide any evidence of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s membership in MS-13.”
Supreme Court ordered Abrego Garcia be released from custody in El Salvador
On April 10, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered “the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.
While agreeing, Justice Sonia Sotomayer went farther than the majority in stating her reasons for rejecting the government’s request for a court order “permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law.”
“The only argument the government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong” in that it “implies [the government] could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”
But this is what has happened since: President Donald Trump met with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office on April 14, where he praised the foreign leader for opening his country’s notorious prison system to alleged gang members and detainees some U.S. officials want out of the country.
Bukele told reporters he does not have the power to return Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker who was allowed to remain in the country by a federal judge’s protective order after entering the United States illegally in 2011, according to USA Today.
A federal judge scolded the Trump administration on Tuesday, April 16, for “dragging its feet” in complying with a Supreme Court order that directed the White House to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Jack Reed considering trip to El Salvador to help Kilmar Abrego Garcia