Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey returned from El Salvador "disappointed" after authorities there refused to allow him to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man mistakenly deported by the Trump administration.
The congressman had previously said that the reason for his visit was to see the conditions under which Abrego Garcia was detained. But Ivey was unable to enter the Santa Ana Industrial Center, where Abrego Garcia was transferred in April from CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, a notorious maximum security prison).
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WATCH HERE"They knew we were coming and they knew why we were coming," Ivey said on Tuesday when he arrived back in the U.S. at Dulles International Airport. "And then when we actually got to the jail, they said something about going to get a permit. [It's] ridiculous that an international delegation would get that kind of treatment."
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SIGN UP "We believe he's at Santa Ana, but they didn't even confirm that yesterday," Ivey said.
He added that the Abrego Garcia case exposes bigger problems, citing a Cato Institute report showing at least 50 of men deported to CECOT had some form of legal status in the U.S. when they were deported.
"The deportations — I get the point, you know, we want to make sure that people who aren't supposed to be here are sent back to where they should go. But that's a little bit different than sending them to some of the toughest jails in the Western Hemisphere for indefinite detention with no criminal charges pending."
Earlier this year, the Trump administration admitted that it mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia due to what it called an "administrative error."
But border czar Tom Homan said in a White House press conference on April 28 he doesn't accept the term "mistake," saying "there was an oversight, there was a withholding order," and claiming that the facts around the withholding order had changed, labelling Abrego Garcia "now a terrorist."
Abrego Garcia's lawyers maintain that he is not a terrorist or a member of MS-13, and say he has not been charged with any crime in the U.S.
In April, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Trump administration must "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. from El Salvador.
In the meantime, Ivey said he did not use public funds for his trip to El Salvador, and emphasized that his trip was about more than just Abrego Garcia — it was about all the men sent to El Salvador without what he described as "due process of law."
This story first appeared in Spanish on Telemundo 44. Para leer en Español, haz clic aquí.
