Kilmar Abrego Garcia tells US senator of traumatizing stay in El Salvador prison
The Justice Department had said as recently as April 12 that he was still at CECOT. But according to Abrego Garcia's account he had already been moved to the facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador.
DULLES, VA – A Maryland father wrongly deported to El Salvador and held in a notorious prison told a U.S. senator that he was traumatized by the experience.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia reported to Sen. Chris Van Hollen during a meeting in El Salvador that he was moved nine days ago from that country's Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, to another facility with better conditions.
Abrego Garcia said he had been traumatized by his time in CECOT and that he had been taunted by other prisoners.
“He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes,” said Van Hollen, who provided details of the meeting at a news conference after arriving back at Dulles International Airport near Washington.
Abrego Garcia's meeting with Van Hollen on April 17 was the first time he had been seen publicly since he was detained in March by U.S. immigration officials near his home in Beltsville, Maryland, about a half hour outside of Washington.
Family, friends and attorneys for the union sheet metal worker had raised questions about his safety and well-being. A federal judge handling his case had asked the Justice Department to produce daily reports on his location and status. Government attorneys had said as recently as April 12 that he was still at CECOT. But, according to Abrego Garcia's account, he had already been moved to a facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador.
Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador this week to demand Abrego Garcia's release, was allowed to see him after twice being advised that the meeting would not happen. Van Hollen said the meeting took place in the hotel where he had been staying in San Salvador.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that, after his arrest in March, he was first taken to Baltimore, where he asked to make a phone call to his loved ones but was refused the opportunity, Van Hollen said.
He was then taken to a detention facility in Texas, where he was “handcuffed, shackled” and put on a plane with others who did not know where they were going.
Once at CECOT, he was placed into a cell with around 25 other people, the senator said.
“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,” Van Hollen said.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen he missed his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and his family, a message the senator said he relayed to the wife in a phone call after the meeting.
"He said that thinking of you, members of his family, is what gave him the strength to persevere, to keep going day to day, even under these awful circumstances," Van Hollen said.
The Trump administration expelled Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran native who had been in the United States for more than a decade and sent him back to the Central American country. An immigration judge had previously ordered that he could not be returned to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia's family has sued the U.S. government demanding his return.
Government attorneys acknowledged in court documents that he was deported by mistake but say they have no authority to free him because he is imprisoned in a foreign country. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on April 14 that he would not free Abrego Garcia and return him to the United States.
U.S. officials contend Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, recently deemed a foreign terrorist organization. But their evidence relies on a confidential informant and clothing Garcia was wearing in 2019 police encounter.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland, who is handling the case, has questioned the strength of the government's evidence, writing that the United States has claimed “without any evidence” that he is a member of MS-13.
In a social media post on April 17, Bukele appeared to mock Van Hollen's meeting Abrego Garcia.
The Salvadoran president posted photos of the meeting and wrote that Abrego Garcia had “miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’” and was “now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!"
Van Hollen, however, said a Bukele aide placed the margarita glasses in front of him and Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia’s glass had slightly less liquid, as if to show he had drunk more, Van Hollen said.
“Neither of us touched the drinks in front of us,” the senator said.