Democrat Rep. Yassamin Ansari confirmed she will be going to El Salvador in the coming days.
Several more congressional Democrats have made statements or issued requests to leadership to travel to El Salvador in hopes of bringing imprisoned deportee and accused MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to Maryland.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., remained in the Central American country as of Thursday morning, after Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa rejected his entreaties to contact or free the alleged gang member on Wednesday.
A representative for Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., confirmed to Fox News Digital on Thursday that the freshman lawmaker would be taking a trip to El Salvador to essentially aid Van Hollen’s efforts.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be home in Maryland right now,” Ansari said in a separate statement. “His illegal abduction and the subsequent complete dismissal of the Supreme Court ruling is deeply disturbing. Our rights shouldn’t be revoked to propagate Trump’s authoritarian agenda. This is a constitutional crisis.”
“He’s already said that he’s ready and willing to illegally deport ‘home-growns’ and American citizens. If this can happen to Mr. Garcia, it can happen to any of us. My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people ‘disappeared’ – I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here, too. That’s why I plan to join my colleagues in traveling to El Salvador to visit Mr. Garcia and make sure Trump’s war on our Constitution and due process stops here.”
Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., also wrote to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requesting a former CODEL (congressional delegation) authorization to visit Tecoluca, El Salvador, where the infamous El Salvadoran mega prison “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT) is located.
“Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national legally living and working in Maryland, was subject to a 2019 withholding order from an immigration judge prohibiting his removal to El Salvador,” Frost and Garcia wrote.
“A Congressional delegation would allow Committee Members to conduct a welfare check on Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as others held at CECOT.”
