Sen. Van Hollen: ‘I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance’.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who flew to El Salvador this week to meet with deported illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia before being denied multiple times, was granted his request on Thursday night.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” Van Hollen said in a post on X. “Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

Garcia, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant living in Maryland, was deported to the El Salvadoran megaprison “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT) last month, and officials acknowledged in court his deportation was an administrative error, although now some top Trump officials say he was correctly removed and contend he’s a member of the notorious MS-13 gang. Both a federal court and the Supreme Court have ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his release and return to the U.S. for proper deportation proceedings.

Van Hollen announced on Tuesday he was going to El Salvador to visit Garcia on Wednesday, and other Democratic lawmakers announced they planned to visit him as well.

But when Van Hollen arrived, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele was out of the country, and the senator from Maryland met with Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay instead.

“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia, and he said, ‘well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT,’” Van Hollen said.

He told Ulloa that he was not interested in taking a tour of CECOT and that he just wanted to meet with Abrego Garcia.

“He said he was not able to make that happen,” Van Hollen said of Ulloa.

The senator was also told he could not be promised a visit if he came back next week, nor could he arrange for Abrego Garcia to speak with his family over the phone.

On Thursday, Van Hollen continued to push for entry into CECOT, but he was denied.

“We were there for one simple reason: to check on his well-being, which his family and lawyers have not been allowed to do,” Van Hollen said on X. “We won’t stop fighting.”