Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who infamously met with alleged gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, celebrated his return to the United States to face criminal charges.
On Friday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that controversially deported ‘Maryland man’ Abrego Garcia, 29, had landed ‘to face justice’ over allegations of people smuggling and conspiracy to commit smuggling.
Bondi also made the bombshell claim that Garcia had ‘abused some of the female undocumented aliens’ while he was transporting them.
She additionally accused him of soliciting nude photos of a minor and playing a role in the murder of a rival. Garcia, however, has not been charged in relation to those crimes.
Democrat Senator Van Hollen lobbied to meet with the man who was his constituent as his party raged over his detention in the El Salvadoran prison.
That meeting sparked controversy when El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele posted a photo of Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia at a table with what appear to be margaritas, though Van Hollen claimed they were fake.
Despite the disturbing criminal charges against Abrego Garcia, Van Hollen took a victory lap Friday suggesting he had done his job while taking shots at Donald Trump.
‘For months, the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,’ Van Hollen said in a statement Friday.
‘Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States.’
Van Hollen refused to give much mention of the charges against his constituent, saying it was not the point.
‘As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.’
The Trump administration initially accepted it had made a mistake in deporting Abrego Garcia, a father-of-three who arrived in the US illegally more than a decade ago.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also championed his return, saying it proved the ‘unhinged Democrat Party’ was wrong about Abrego Garcia, who liberals had dubbed a ‘Maryland father-of-three’.
Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador after being accused of being an MS-13 gang member. The deportation went ahead despite a court order forbidding his return which claimed he was at risk of persecution by the gang.
Prior to this he had several brushes with the law in the US over the years, although none resulted in arrest or conviction.
After initially ignoring a court order to facilitate his repatriation to the US, Bondi announced that Abrego Garcia has been hauled back to America to face charges stemming from one of these encounters.
A federal grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia over claims he participated in a years- long operation trafficking people through the Texas border.
Sources told ABC News that amongst those allegedly transported were members of the infamous Salvadoran gang MS-13.
The conspiracy is said to have spanned nearly ten years and involved the transportation of thousands of migrants from Mexico and Central America.
He is expected to be prosecuted and, if convicted, will be returned to his home country at the conclusion of the case, officials said.
The investigation into the charges started after federal authorities started probing a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, source said.
He was stopped with eight people in his car and told officers he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for a construction job.
The exchange led the officer to, ‘suspect this was a human trafficking incident’, according to a report produced at the time.
But Abrego Garcia was let go with out any arrest or charge, despite having an expired license, per the document.
Abrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison after the administration claimed he was a member of MS-13. Something he and his family have denied.
President Donald Trump had repeatedly maintained in an interview with ABC’s Terry Moran that Abrego Garcia has M-S-1-3 tattooed on his hand.
Trump had posted multiple times showing knuckle tattoos, but Moran told him the actual M-S-1-3 letters and numbers had simply been photoshopped onto the image above Abrego Garcia’s actual tattoos as a code to decipher them.
His deportation saga began when he was pulled over by immigration officers on March 12 and was told his immigration status had changed.
Within days he was on a plane to El Salvador and his family recognized him in CECOT from media images which showed off distinctive tattoos on his arm.
Abrego Garcia was granted ‘withholding of removal’ status in 2019 after a judge determined his claims that he would be persecuted if he returned to El Salvador were legitimate.
President Trump had said that he could retrieve Abrego Garcia with one phone call to El Salvador’s president, but refused to do it.
Abrego Garcia´s American wife sued over his deportation, and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered his return on April 4.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.
Late last month the administration asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction because he was no longer in the US.
Attorneys for the administration have also argued that information about returning Abrego Garcia is protected under state secrets privilege.
U.S. attorneys said releasing such details in open court – or even to the judge in private – would jeopardize national security by revealing sensitive diplomatic negotiations. Many filings in the case have been sealed.
The case has raised questions about whether due process was followed and highlighted the extent to which the White House is trying to exert control over the courts to bolster its immigration policy.
In a statement about his return, Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said: ‘From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time.
‘Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man’s life. We’re not just fighting for Kilmar – we’re fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone.
‘Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us — if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution.’
Abrego Garcia’s wife has stood by him throughout the saga, despite previously filing a report of domestic abuse against her husband.
The Salvadoran was never charged over the report which was later retracted.