Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, in El Salvador trying to bring home a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported, said Wednesday that nation’s vice president told him that he wouldn’t free Kilmar Abrego Garcia, nor would he arrange for the Democrat to meet with his constituent, who continues to be held in a notorious prison.

In a YouTube live stream, Van Hollen said he assured Vice President Félix Ulloa that “I won’t stop trying. And I can assure the president (and) the vice president that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more, and there will be more members of Congress coming. This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, so it cannot continue this way.”

Van Hollen’s visit — and the White House’s sharp criticism of the second-term Maryland senator on Wednesday — further escalated a legal and political tussle over Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Beltsville sheet metal apprentice deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.”

The Trump administration launched a verbal attack on Van Hollen after he landed in El Salvador, saying the Democrat is aiding “a brutal MS-13 gang member” by traveling to El Salvador and trying to free a constituent who was mistakenly deported.

Van Hollen “is currently in El Salvador out of concern for an illegal immigrant MS-13 gang member and human trafficker for whom he ‘won’t stop fighting until he’s home,'” the White House said in a news release.

“The criminal illegal immigrant is already home — he’s a Salvadoran citizen,” said the White House release. It said the second-term senator from Montgomery County should be more concerned “for Americans brutalized by illegal immigrant crime.”

The White House press release listed nine people it says were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maryland, asking of Van Hollen: “Where was his concern for Maryland constituents put at risk … ?”

Van Hollen said he planned the trip Wednesday because the Trump administration denied Abrego Garcia due process, won’t own up to its error and has defied court orders to try to bring him home. Van Hollen has accused the administration of “lies” about Abrego Garcia that cast him as a gang member or terrorist.

The Trump administration says it lacks jurisdiction to bring Abrego Garcia home, and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has told the White House he won’t help. Van Hollen said the vice president told him that he could not “smuggle” Abrego Garcia into the United States. Bukele had made a similar statement to Trump on Monday.

The sides in the debate — congressional Democrats on one side and the Republican Trump administration on the other — offer sharply divergent portraits of Abrego Garcia.

The administration and other Republicans have accused Abrego Garcia of being an MS-13 gang member. He has not been convicted of any related crimes in the U.S. or El Salvador, according to court records.

“The Trump administration is lying about Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen said from El Salvador.

Van Hollen said he was denied permission to see Abrego Garcia or get him on the phone.

“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia. And he said, ‘Well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT (the prison).’ I said I’m not interested at this moment in taking a tour of CECOT. I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said he was not able to make that happen,” Van Hollen said.

The senator said he was told the American Embassy might be able to arrange a phone call with Abrego Garcia. “So I will certainly ask the American Embassy to ask the government of El Salvador to connect us by phone,” Van Hollen said.

Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadoran national and has been in the United States legally since 2019, according to online records of his case in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to uphold a lower court ruling stating the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

He has no criminal history, according to court records. Federal courts concluded that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no authority to take him into custody and tell him incorrectly that “his status had changed.”

Though Garcia is not a U.S. citizen, a federal judge had granted him a protective order to remain in the country.

In a recent letter demanding his release, Van Hollen and fellow Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks said gang members had been trying to recruit Abrego Garcia and his brother, “forcing his family to move multiple times, ultimately compelling both him and his brother to flee to the United States out of fear.”

But the Department of Homeland Security posted on X Wednesday that Van Hollen “has done more to bring a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien back to Maryland than he has to help keep his American constituents safe or advocate for the victims of these vicious gangs like MS-13.”

The post continued: “While Senator Van Hollen and the mainstream media peddle a sob story about a brutal MS-13 gang member, Secretary (Kristi) Noem stands with the victims of illegal alien crime, like Maryland mom Rachel Morin.”

The post referenced a Harford County woman murdered in August 2023. The El Salvador man suspected of raping and killing her on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail was found guilty on all charges after a nine-day jury trial ended Monday.

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