Vice President JD Vance and other senior administration officials have defended the Trump administration’s actions amid an escalating legal battle.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has been extremely vocal in advocating for Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) flew to El Salvador on Wednesday seeking to secure the release of a man wrongly deported by the Trump administration, as officials ramp up their defense of the administration’s actions in an escalating battle over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy.

The Trump administration has made the fight around Kilmar Abrego Garcia the centerpiece of its broader deportation efforts, resisting efforts to bring him back to the United States, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return after his illegal deportation.

But after a meeting with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa, Van Hollen was denied the opportunity to see Abrego Garcia or visit the maximum security prison where he’s being held.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Van Hollen said that he asked Ulloa for a meeting with Abrego Garcia. Ulloa said he would have needed to “make earlier provisions” to visit, according to the senator, and also added he would be unable to arrange a phone call.

“I asked the vice president — if Abrego Garcia has not committed a crime, and if courts found that he was illegally taken, and the government of El Salvador has found no evidence he was part of MS-13 — then why is El Salvador continuing to hold him?” Van Hollen said.

Trump and senior members of his administration have said they have no legal obligation to arrange for anything more than admitting Abrego Garcia back into the country if El Salvador releases him from a high-security prison. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, with whom Trump has developed a budding friendship, said during a visit to the Oval Office this week that he would not release Abrego Garcia.

Trump’s refusal to make any attempt to bring Abrego Garcia, a native Salvadoran who was living in Maryland until the U.S. illegally deported him last month, back — and an increasingly high-stakes standoff with the lower court that originally ordered Abrego Garcia returned — has sparked growing concern among Democrats, who have decried the administration’s effort as lawless.

Van Hollen has been extremely vocal in advocating for his release, promising Monday to travel to El Salvador to “check on” his condition and “discuss his release” after Bukele rebuffed attempts to set up a meeting during his visit to Washington.

Nayib Bukele, with whom Trump has developed a budding friendship, said during a visit to the Oval Office this week that he would not release Abrego Garcia. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Maryland senator followed through on his commitment, traveling to the Central American country Wednesday morning.

“The goal of this mission is to let the Trump administration, let the government of El Salvador know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home until he returns to his family,” Van Hollen said in a video from the airport on his way to San Salvador, adding that he hopes to “meet with representatives of the government” and “see Kilmar.” Van Hollen, in second a video posted to X, said he arrived in San Salvador a little before noon and that he was on his way to the U.S. embassy.

Trump border czar Tom Homan slammed the Democratic senator for his visit, calling the trip “disgusting” on Fox News on Wednesday morning and echoing a line from the administration that the senator is more concerned with an “MS-13 terrorist” than Rachel Morin, a Maryland woman whose killer — who was convicted this week — was an undocumented immigrant.

“He wasn’t abducted. He is an MS-13 gang member, classified as a terrorist, that was removed from this country. So we got rid of a dangerous person — an El Salvadoran national was returned to the country of El Salvador, to his home,” Homan said, going on to call Abrego Garcia a “public safety threat.”

Administration officials have repeatedly called Abrego Garcia a “terrorist” and “MS-13 gang member.” The Trump administration has contended that he is a member of the gang by citing an immigration court proceeding from 2019. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who initially ordered Abrego Garcia’s return, has called the evidence of any gang affiliation extraordinarily flimsy: It amounted to a tip from a confidential informant and the fact that Abrego Garcia wore Chicago Bulls attire. The Department of Homeland Security also released court filings on Wednesday saying Abrego Garcia’s wife had sought a restraining order against him, saying “this MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.”

Van Hollen said that he stressed to the Salvadoran government that there is no evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13. He added that the U.S. embassy has received no direction from the Trump administration on facilitating Abrego Garcia’s return, which Van Hollen said is “clearly in violation of American court orders.”

Van Hollen said that he would continue pressing the Salvadoran government during his visit, and working with the U.S. embassy in San Salvador to check in on Abrego Garcia.

Government lawyers openly admitted that Abrego Garcia had been deported in violation of federal law earlier this month, as an immigration judge in 2019 had determined he faced legitimate fear of persecution in El Salvador and could not be deported back to his country of origin. He was among the hundreds of men deported by the administration last month to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison.

Xinis said Tuesday that her court would launch an “intense” two-week inquiry into the Trump administration’s attempts — or lack thereof — to bring him back to the United States. She said the Supreme Court’s order was “very clear” that the government was obligated to work to secure his release.