Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) announced that she will travel to El Salvador to demand that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian national who was mistakenly deported from the U.S., be released from prison in the country.
“A legal U.S. resident has had his due process rights ripped away and is now being held indefinitely in a foreign prison. This is not just one family’s nightmare; it is a constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us,” Dexter said in a statement Friday night.
“I will travel to El Salvador to confront this crisis head on. Our constitutional rights are on the line,” the Portland-area lawmaker added.
Dexter, who represents Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, is following in the footsteps of Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who returned Friday from El Salvador, where he was able to talk to Abrego Garcia
“When I told him that his wife and family sent their love and were fighting for Kilmar to return home every day, he said that he was worried about all of you, that was his response,” Van Hollen told reporters on Friday upon his return.
Abrego Garcia was deported from the U.S. last month based on a 2019 informant tip that accused him of being a MS-13 gang member, a transnational criminal group that it designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. He was not charged with a crime.
Abrego Garcia, his family and lawyers have denied the claims. At the time, a judge shielded him from deportation, fearing gang violence in El Salvador.
Last month, he was then sent to El Salvador’s high-security CECOT prison, although the Trump administration said it was due to an “administrative error.”
Dexter’s trip to El Salvador comes as several House Democrats were denied similar trips to the country earlier this week.
Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Maxwell Frost’s (Fla.) request to travel, utilizing official committee funds for Congressional delegation, was shot down by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) earlier this week.
House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) announced on Thursday that he would deny Democrats’ request, arguing “there is no excuse for Democrats to waste taxpayer dollars visiting and defending a transnational gang member and reported domestic abuser,” referring to a civil protective order Abrego Garcia’s wife filed against him four years ago.
The administration has not proceeded with facilitating the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. after an order from the Supreme Court, a posture lambasted by a federal judge in court this week.
Trump has doubled down on the administration’s approach to the Abrego Garcia’s case, writing Friday that “they said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc.”
