Man wrongly deported to El Salvador ‘traumatised’ by mega-prison – as Supreme Court blocks new deportations

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A man wrongly deported to El Salvador was “traumatised” by his time at a notorious mega-prison, a US senator has said, as the Supreme Court blocks new deportations of Venezuelan migrants.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia told Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen he had now been moved to a detention centre with better conditions in a meeting that went ahead after the senator’s initial requests to speak to him were denied.

Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, was deported last month and is being detained in the Central American country despite the US Supreme Court calling on the White House to facilitate his return home.

In a fresh ruling on Saturday morning UK time, the Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt to deportations of Venezuelans under an 18th century wartime law.

The dispute centres on dozens of Venezuelans held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed urgent requests for intervention on Friday after reporting some of the men had already been loaded onto buses and were told they would be deported.

The Supreme Court previously ruled that the 1798 law – historically only employed in wartime – could be used to deport migrants, but only after a court hearing.

ACLU said the Venezuelan migrants held in Texas had not been given a realistic opportunity to contest their removal.

The White House has yet to comment. Mr Trump has previously said he supports the removal of “bad people”.

The deportation of Mr Garcia has become a flashpoint in the US, with Democrats casting it as a cruel consequence of Mr Trump’s disregard for the courts, while Republicans have criticised Democrats for defending him and argued his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.

Trump officials have said Mr Garcia has ties to the violent MS-13 gang. However, Mr Garcia’s attorneys say the government has provided no evidence, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Earlier this week, Maryland senator, Mr Van Hollen, flew to El Salvador and met with Mr Garcia in an effort to help secure his return to America.

Speaking to reporters at Washington Dulles International airport after returning to the US on Friday, Mr Van Hollen said: “As the federal courts have said, we need to bring Mr Abrego Garcia home to protect his constitutional rights to due process. And it’s also important that people understand this case is not just about one man.

“It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.”

Mr Van Hollen added the Trump administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country” in foreign prisons “without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order”.

Don’t let the PR battle cloud the real human story

David Blevins

News correspondent

@skydavidblevins

What began as the plight of a Salvadoran man wrongly deported from the US to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador has become a much broader debate.

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia now ranges from the extremely serious – questions over the rule of law, due process and a potential constitutional crisis – to the more curious matter of tequila-based cocktails.

There is a public relations battle going on over the images which emerged of Mr Abrego Garcia meeting Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen at a hotel in San Salvador.

In the first photos which were made public, on the social media account of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, an ally of Donald Trump, the two men had cocktail glasses in front of them which he said were margaritas.

But when Senator van Hollen posted his account of the meeting, those glasses had vanished. So what’s this all about, and why does it matter?

The senator has now given his version of events, saying the glasses were placed there by an El Salvador government official to mock concerns about the conditions in the country’s prison – a photo op aimed at shifting the narrative around Mr Abrego Garcia’s detention in El Salvador.

Mr van Hollen also revealed El Salvador officials initially wanted the meeting to take place next to a swimming pool, to give an even more tropical backdrop to the encounter.

But at the end of the day, it’s not just about images, it’s not about public relations, it’s not even about margaritas. It’s about a 29-year-old father of three, detained in El Salvador, despite having never gone through due process in the US.

The senator also revealed Mr Garcia was brought from a detention centre to his hotel after initial requests to meet or speak with him were denied.

Mr Van Hollen said Mr Garcia told him he was “traumatised” after being detained at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, but he had been moved to a “different facility” with better conditions nine days ago.

The senator said Mr Garcia told him he was worried about his family and that thinking about them was giving him “the strength to persevere” and to “keep going” under awful circumstances. Mr Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, was at the news conference and wiped away tears as Mr Van Hollen spoke of her husband’s desire to speak to her.

Earlier, Mr Van Hollen had posted photos of himself meeting with Mr Garcia.

It came before El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared his own images of the meeting, which he claimed showed the pair “sipping margaritas” in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador”.

Mr Van Hollen said photos of them with margaritas were staged by officials working for the country’s president.

In an apparent sarcastic remark, Mr Bukele wrote that Mr Garcia had “miraculously risen” from the “death camps”.

Giving an account of what he says happened when the photos were taken, Mr Van Hollen said: “We just had glasses of water on the table. I think maybe some coffee.

“And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice. And I don’t know if it was salt or sugar round the top, but they looked like margaritas.

“If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmer, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in me in front of me to try to make it look, I assume like he drank out of it.

“Let me just be very clear. Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.”

He added that people can tell he is telling the truth because if someone had sipped from one of the glass there would be a “gap” where the “salt or sugar” had disappeared.

Mr Van Hollen said the image shows the “lengths” the El Salvadorian president will go to “deceive people about what’s going on”.

“It also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and [President Trump] will go to, because when he was asked by a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride.”

On 15 March, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador. Many of the migrants’ lawyers and family members say they were not gang members and had no chance to dispute the government’s assertion that they were.