Four more Democrats traveled to El Salvador to show their support for deported MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The event has been described as an effort to “pressure” the Trump administration into facilitating Abrego Garcia’s return.
Democrat Reps. Robert Garcia (CA), Yassamin Ansari (AZ), Maxwell Frost (FL), and Maxine Dexter (OR) claimed Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a “direct violation of due process protected by the Constitution,” a press release says.
The visit comes as the Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to facilitate the return of the gang member. The government admitted Abrego Garcia’s detention was a mistake due to an “administrative error.”
“While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here– to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America. We are demanding the Trump Administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States.”
Frost claimed the Trump administration was “illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting innocent people with zero due process” in a “government-funded kidnapping program,” while Ansari asserted Abrego Garcia was the victim of an “illegal abduction.”
Dexter emphasized in a statement that the events surrounding Abrego Garcia’s deportation are a “constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us.”
Abrego Garcia entered the United States in 2011, living in Maryland and marrying an American citizen. He was later suspected of human trafficking by a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper.
Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) visited Abrego Garcia earlier this month.
