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Maryland’s Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador on April 16^th and met with the country’s vice president. Senator Van Hollen pushed for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran citizen with suspected MS-13 gang ties, from a local prison. Mr. Garcia had been living in the U.S. illegally before the Trump administration deported him back to his home country last month as part of a group of suspected members of designated terrorist gangs. The El Salvadoran government took these deportees into custody upon landing, including Mr. Garcia, and transported them to an El Salvadoran prison.

Senator Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to help Mr. Garica secure his release came just two days after another illegal immigrant from El Salvador was convicted of raping and murdering Rachel Morin, a U.S. citizen from Maryland. Instead of flying 2000 miles to virtue-signal, why didn’t Maryland’s Democrat senator remain in Maryland to meet with Rachel Morin’s family? During a heartrending appearance at a White House press briefing on April 16th, Rachel’s mother, Patty Morin, denounced Senator Van Hollen for flying off to El Salvador for Mr. Garcia’s sake, while virtually ignoring her daughter’s tragic murder.

Senator Van Hollen informed reporters in San Salvador that Vice President Félix Ulloa told him that his government could not return Mr. Garcia to the United States. This should not have come as a surprise to the illegal immigrant-loving senator. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele had already said during his visit with President Trump in the Oval Office that he would not return Garcia to the United States. President Bukele called the idea of releasing Garcia and allowing him to go back to the United States “preposterous.”  He declared, “Of course, I’m not going to do it.”

But Senator Van Hollen refused to accept the decision of the leader of El Salvador, a sovereign nation, regarding the handling of an El Salvadoran citizen who is back in his own country. “I’ve been in El Salvador all day fighting for the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” he posted on X, adding that “I won’t rest” until Garcia is brought “home.”

Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran citizen who had been living in Maryland as an illegal immigrant, is already home in El Salvador where he belongs. All that Senator Van Hollen’s performative publicity stunt accomplished was his visit with Garcia, who looked none the worse for wear in the photo that Van Hollen posted on X.

Senator Van Hollen had never taken the time to meet personally with Rachel Morin’s family to help console them in the aftermath of Rachel’s horrible murder at the hands of another illegal immigrant from El Salvador. But he was proud to show off his meeting with Mr. Garcia, the El Salvadoran citizen in a Salvadoran prison, who was suspected of having ties with the MS-13 terrorist gang.

Upon his return to the United States without Mr. Garcia in tow, Senator Van Hollen held a press conference and was joined by Mr. Garcia’s wife. Even though she had accused the Left’s hero of physically assaulting her several years ago and had applied for a protective order against him in 2021, for whatever reason she supports him now.

Senator Van Hollen pompously declared that the principle being defended in the Garcia case is about more than just one man. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States,” he said. “It’s very clear that the president, Trump administration, are blatantly, flagrantly disagreeing with, defying the order from the Supreme Court.”

Senator Van Hollen is wrong on all counts. As an illegal immigrant with suspected ties to MS-13, a designated terrorist organization, Abrego Garcia does not have the same constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen. And the Trump administration has not “flagrantly” defied any Supreme Court order.

In 2019, an immigration judge found Mr. Garcia to be deportable, which was affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals later that year. Garcia denied that he was ever affiliated with MS-13, despite all the evidence to the contrary contained in Prince George County Police Department’s March 28, 2019 Gang Field Interview Sheet pointing to Mr. Garcia’s ties with MS-13. The immigration judge concluded that determining Garcia to be a gang member was supported by evidence in the record, including “information contained in the Gang Field Interview Sheet.”

Mr. Garcia’s case for being returned to the United States relies primarily on another immigration judge’s October 2019 order that withheld his deportation to a specific country, presumably El Salvador. The reason given was Garcia’s fear for his life from a gang known as Barrio 18. But the withholding order confused matters when it referred explicitly to Guatemala rather than El Salvador. It noted that the government had not shown there were “changed circumstances in Guatemala” that would result in Garcia’s “life not being threatened, or that internal relocation is possible and reasonable under the circumstances.” (Emphasis added)

The withholding order was also situational as it was linked to a factual finding regarding the specific circumstances involving Mr. Garcia’s fear of Barrio 18 at the time. Since then, the Barrio 18 gang has been virtually dismantled in El Salvador, thanks to President Bukele’s crackdown.

After the Trump administration ignored the five year-plus old withholding order and deported Mr. Garcia to El Salvador anyway, Senator Van Hollen and Mr. Garcia’s other supporters accused the Trump administration of violating the immigration court’s withholding order. Mr. Garcia’s lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking his return to the United States on the grounds that he was wrongfully deported in violation of the withholding order. Their case landed before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, a Barack Obama appointee.

Taking a step back for a moment, immigration judges are not part of the judicial branch. They are part of the executive branch, acting under the authority of the attorney general who is permitted to overrule the Garcia withholding order or any other orders issued by immigration judges.

Any noncitizen who has engaged in, supported, or is affiliated with a designated terrorist organization is removable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(4)(B) “upon the order of the Attorney General.” (Emphasis added)

MS-13 is an officially designated terrorist organization. Abrego Garcia’s affiliation with MS-13 was verified in a legal proceeding by an immigration judge, which was affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals. In explaining the decision to deport Mr. Garcia without any further proceedings, Attorney General Pam Bondi explained that “An immigration judge ruled. He was a member of MS-13, an appellate judge ruled. He was a member of MS-13 hard stop. He should not be in our country, he was deported.”

Abrego Garcia already had his due process in 2019 when an immigration judge who heard his case found that he was “a verified member of MS-13” and therefore was deportable. The Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Mr. Garcia’s challenge to that decision and upheld the immigration judge’s finding. The second immigration judge’s 2019 withholding order was specifically premised on the circumstances at the time, which have since changed, and appeared to conflate Guatemala and El Salvador in explaining the rationale for the order.

Nevertheless, Judge Xinis concluded that the Trump administration’s deportation of Mr. Garcia to El Salvador without a proper hearing was unlawful. In the very first sentence of her April 6, 2025 Memorandum Opinion, she wrote that “an immigration judge” had “granted Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia…withholding of removal, thereby protecting him from return to his native country, El Salvador.”

Did Judge Xinis check the 2019 withholding order first, which referred to Guatemala, not El Salvador, before directing the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Mr. Garcia’s return from El Salvador to the U.S. by a set deadline? We’ll never know, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed her order anyway.

The Supreme Court decided, in response to the Trump administration’s emergency appeal, to keep the District Court’s order in effect, but removed the deadline. The Supreme Court sent the case back to Judge Xinis to clarify her use of the term “effectuate,” lest she “exceed the District Court’s authority.” The word “effectuate” means “to cause or bring about,” according to the Miriam-Webster dictionary. The Supreme Court instructed her to act “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

Judge Xinis ignored the Supreme Court’s caveats in her subsequent April 15, 2025 Order Granting Expedited Discovery. Her order sets forth an extensive discovery schedule that could include depositions of executive branch officials. It amounts to an extensive fishing expedition that potentially intrudes on executive privilege and on the executive branch’s constitutional primacy in the realm of foreign relations.

To get around the Supreme Court’s problem with the word “effectuate,” Judge Xinis dropped mention of this word in her April 15^th order. Instead, she applied a maximalist interpretation of the word “facilitate” [which means “to help bring (something) about”] as if it were equivalent to the higher obligation to “effectuate.” (Emphasis added) She cited prior government practice to support her contention that the Trump administration should have actively engaged diplomatic channels in El Salvador to help secure Mr. Garcia’s release and return. But deciding whether to go that far is not a call for a judge to make. Such decisions lie entirely within the discretion of the executive branch as part of its constitutional responsibility to manage foreign relations.

The U.S. government cannot compel El Salvador to release and transfer Mr. Garcia to U.S. custody. He is an El Salvadoran citizen whom the El Salvador government is detaining on suspicion of belonging, or having belonged, to the MS-13 gang. And there may be good reasons for the Trump administration not to use diplomatic channels to pressure El Salvador to release Garcia, such as not undermining the two countries’ cooperation in fighting terrorist organizations. Judge Xinis’s suggestion to the contrary defies the Supreme Court’s directive to act “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

Removing all barriers to Mr. Garcia’s reentry into the United States that are within the U.S. government’s control if El Salvador releases him into U.S. custody is all that the Trump administration must legally do to “facilitate” Mr. Garcia’s return. Transporting him back to the U.S. where he would be detained, pending another hearing, is an example. But it is a moot point. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has already said publicly in his meeting with President Trump that he will not release Garcia into U.S. custody. That should be the final word unless he changes his mind.

The Supreme Court should not have allowed the Garcia case to go this far. The case’s assumption that Mr. Garcia was “improperly sent to El Salvador” in the first place is fundamentally flawed. Moreover, Judge Xinis’s attempt to second-guess how the Trump administration manages its relations with the El Salvadoran government, including whether to use diplomatic channels to pressure El Salvador to release Garcia into U.S. custody, exceeds her judicial authority.

Shortly after midnight on April 19^th, the Supreme Court issued an order temporarily pausing the Trump administration’s deportation of any more illegal immigrants associated with violent gangs that have been designated as terrorist organizations until further notice. Notably the Supreme Court did not take any further action with respect to the illegal immigrants already deported to El Salvador, including Mr. Garcia. The Supreme Court should put an end to the Garcia travesty as soon as possible and dismiss his case with prejudice.