Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) was denied entry to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) by El Salvador officials on Thursday as he attempted to check on the condition of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man abducted and deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration — even as Republicans post selfies they’ve taken inside the notorious torture prison online.
In a post on social media, Van Hollen said that he was stopped while on the road to CECOT by soldiers “ordered to prevent us from going any farther from this spot.” They were stopped just three kilometers, or under two miles, away, even as other vehicles were allowed through.
The senator previously said that El Salvador officials have denied him a chance to visit or even have a phone call with Abrego García.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Van Hollen said that he was allowed to meet with El Salvador’s vice president Félix Ulloa and other senior officials to discuss Abrego García’s imprisonment, but was not allowed access to the Maryland father. Ulloa said that Van Hollen could instead tour CECOT, the facility where Abrego García is being held, if he arranged in advance to do so.
The senator added that, when he asked why El Salvador’s government was still holding Abrego García despite having no credible reason to do so, Ulloa answered that the U.S. is paying El Salvador to imprison him. Ulloa also repeated El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s claim that the government lacks the power to release him, despite court orders for him to be released.
“I want to emphasize that President Trump and our Attorney General Pam Bondi and the vice president of the United States are lying when they say that Abrego García has been charged with a crime or is part of MS-13,” said Van Hollen. “That is a lie. And this is a lie to cover up what they did.”
“I asked the vice president, ‘if Abrego García has not committed a crime, and the U.S. courts have found that he was illegally taken from the United States, and the government of El Salador has no evidence that he was part of MS-13, why is El Salvador continuing to hold him in CECOT?’” the senator went on. “And his answer was that the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT.”
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador earlier this week in an attempt to secure the release of Abrego García, a father of three who was in the U.S. under a special status granted to him years ago by a judge who determined that the Salvadorian would face persecution if he were deported.
A handful of other Democrats in Congress are also seeking to arrange official delegation trips to El Salvador in relation to the imprisonment of Abrego García and hundreds of others deported to CECOT by the Trump administration.
While El Salvador officials have denied Van Hollen the opportunity to contact Abrego García, they have allowed numerous Republicans to tour the prison notorious for its human rights abuses, seemingly in order to take photoshoots trying to vilify those imprisoned there.
The Trump administration has sent over 230 men to CECOT. Despite the administration accusing them of having ties to gangs, reporting has found that 90 percent of them have never been charged with a crime outside of traffic or immigration violations. No one is ever let out of CECOT, and the lack of due process required to be imprisoned there have led some to liken the prison to a concentration camp.
This week, Representatives Jason Smith (R-Missouri) and Riley Moore (R-West Virginia) posted photos of themselves visiting the facility on X. One chilling picture depicts them standing in front of large cells with high ceilings crammed with men in white prison garb; another shows men sitting on the floor in the center of the facility.
In one selfie, Moore stands in front of men in a cell with a neutral expression; in another, also posted by Moore, he is smirking and holding two thumbs up in front of a cell filled with large metal racks that are packed with men, many of them also facing the camera from behind the bars.
Note: This story was updated to reflect Senator Van Hollen’s latest update on being stopped on the road to CECOT on Thursday.
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