Van Hollen argues Trump has the ability to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Sen. Chris Van Hollen told President Donald Trump that it’s up to him to return a Maryland man wrongfully deported last March, according to a letter the senator sent to the White House on Tuesday.

The Maryland Democrat detailed for Trump what Vice President Félix Ulloa said when the men met earlier this month in El Salvador to discuss Abrego Garcia’s release.

Ulloa conceded that El Salvador had no access to evidence justifying Abrego Garcia’s detention in a Salvadoran prison but were holding him because the Trump administration was paying them to do so.

Van Hollen recalled Ulloa saying that El Salvador “does not ‘qualify those persons who are there, we just take them.’”

“He made it clear that they did not review the file of Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said, ‘We have a deal with the U.S. government. They send people. We host them. They pay. And that’s it,’” Van Hollen said.

The vice president repeatedly said it’s up to the U.S. to release Abrego Garcia, using the phrase “the ball is in your court,” according to Van Hollen.

Van Hollen said his conversation with Ulloa exposed that the Trump administration can facilitate the man’s return and that his administration is “doing nothing,” despite an order from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Government of El Salvador is imprisoning him because your Administration is paying them to do so,” Van Hollen wrote to Trump. “And they claim to be contractually obligated. Obviously, your Administration could say El Salvador was no longer contractually obligated to imprison Mr. Abrego Garcia.”

Requests for comment emailed to the White House were not immediately returned.

Lawyers for the Trump administration said an “administrative error” caused the 29-year-old Beltsville man to be swept up in a mass deportation effort.

But the administration has since doubled down on keeping him there, saying on social media that Abrego Garcia is not coming back.

Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador after Ulloa repeatedly denied his requests to do so.

Maryland’s senior senator promised Abrego Garcia’s family that he’d continue fighting for his return and has repeatedly said that this case is not about one man but about the due-process rights of all Americans.

He reiterated this in his letter to Trump: “If your Administration can strip away the constitutional rights of one man in defiance of court orders, it can do it to all of us.”