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Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who has led the party’s advocacy for suspected gang member Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, is celebrating his return to the U.S., saying, “This is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights.”
“For months, the Trump administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution,” Van Hollen asserted in a statement sent to Fox News Digital via email.
“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 was the first of several Democratic lawmakers to fly to visit Abrego Garcia after he was deported to a high-security prison in his home country, El Salvador, in March.
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Abrego Garcia, 29, has been returned to the U.S. and is facing charges in a sealed federal indictment in Tennessee for alleged conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens.
Though many Democrats claim Abrego Garcia is an innocent man who was wrongly deported, the administration has pointed to considerable evidence he is a member of the MS-13 gang.
Abrego Garcia allegedly moved illegal immigrants from Texas to interior states in what prosecutors say was an organized operation stretching back years.
He has also been accused of being a member of the violent Salvadoran gang MS-13. According to court records filed by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, he also allegedly physically abused her on multiple occasions.
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Since Abrego Garcia’s deportation to his home country, Van Hollen has advocated for his return.
After Fox News Digital asked Van Hollen in May whether he was aware of the domestic violence allegations against Abrego Garcia before he went to visit him in El Salvador, the senator became defensive, saying, “What I said here was these issues need to be litigated in the courts.”
In a statement Friday, Van Hollen doubled down on that sentiment, saying, “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.”
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Despite the gravity of his alleged crimes, returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S. has become a major cause for the Democratic Party.
Earlier Friday, another Maryland Democrat, Rep. Glenn Ivey, who also made a trip to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia, used his X account to promote an event to continue the “critical conversation on the fight to return those who are wrongfully imprisoned in El Salvador.”
Ivey claimed Abrego Garcia’s case is “part of a much larger crisis — and we must not look away.”
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In a statement to Fox News Digital, Ivey also asserted that the Trump administration “defied the Supreme Court and misled the American people for months, saying they could not bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States under any circumstances, knowing that they had the power to do so all along.
“I went to El Salvador and advocated for Kilmar’s return because he was entitled to due process under our Constitution. Kilmar will now get his day in court. I hope he receives the fair trial that he is guaranteed.”
Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican congressman, responded to the news of Abrego Garcia’s return with disgust, posting on X, “What a waste of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Bringing an already deported illegal alien criminal back to the US to be housed in a US jail at taxpayer expense so he can stand trial and then be deported back to his homeland.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to representatives Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., all of whom have made trips to visit Abrego Garcia in prison.
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