Kilmar Abrego Garcia latest: MD Congressman Glenn Ivey to travel to El Salvador
Glenn Ivey talks El Salvador trip to bring Abrego Garcia back to US
Glenn Ivey talks El Salvador trip to bring Abrego Garcia back to US
WASHINGTON - Congressman Glenn Ivey (D-MD) will depart from Dulles Airport Friday night headed to El Salvador to do a welfare check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
What we know:
Ivey is expected to fly to El Salvador from Dulles International Airport at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Congressman Glenn Ivey speaks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Congressman Glenn Ivey speaks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia after Van Hollen meeting
Dig deeper:
Ivey's trip comes a little over a month after Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador and met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love," said Van Hollen following his meeting with Abrego Garcia on April 17.
Both Ivey and Van Hollen have been spoken out for Abrego Garcia's release from prison in El Salvador back to the United States.
The backstory:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a 29-year-old El Salvadorian national. He fled his home country and came to the U.S. when he was 16. He has since lived in Maryland. He has three children and a wife, Jennifer Vasquez.
On March 12, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore after working a shift as a sheet metal apprentice and picking up his 5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, according to his lawyers.
He was then sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT which activists say is rife with abuses. Three days later, he was deported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say they removed him to a Salvadoran prison over a 2019 accusation that he was in the MS-13 gang.
Abrego Garcia's ties to MS-13 were never proven and he has repeatedly denied being a gang member. His lawyers argue that the U.S. government "has never produced an iota of evidence" that he is affiliated with MS-13 or any other street gang.
His eventual expulsion to El Salvador violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shielded him from deportation to his native country. The judge ruled that Abrego Garcia had credible fears of being killed if he returned to El Salvador.
Abrego-Garcia has no criminal record in the U.S. outside of a few traffic violations. He had regularly checked in with immigration authorities.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials later admitted in a court filing that his deportation was due to an "administrative error" but the Trump administration has since maintained that there is nothing they can do to bring him back.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice told a federal judge that Kilmar Abrego Garcia will "never walk freely in the U.S."
Abrego Garcia's lawyers said in a Maryland court that the Trump administration has produced thousands of pages of documents in this case – but his lawyers have only received 164 pages.
The Trump administration has invoked the state secrets privilege in the case, arguing that releasing details in open court or to a judge in private about any efforts to return Abrego Garcia would jeopardize national security.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said their explanation for invoking state secrets privilege was inadequate.
"There’s simply no details," she said. "This is basically ‘take my word for it.’"