White House rages at ‘appalling’ attempt to return wrongly deported man from El Salvador

The White House has hit out at an “appalling” attempt by a Democratic senator to return a father wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday to speak to the country’s leaders about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was removed from the US by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Washington acknowledged that Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”.

The US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, upholding a court order by Judge Paula Xinis, but Trump officials have claimed that Mr Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang.

Mr Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no evidence of this.

Speaking about Mr Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the Democrats “still refuse to accept the will of the American people”.

She alleged Mr Garcia is an “illegal alien MS-13 terrorist”.

After outlining the allegations against Mr Garcia, she went on: “All of that is not enough to stop the Democrat Party from their lies.

“The number one issue they are focused on right now is bringing back this illegal alien terrorist to America.

“It’s appalling and sad that Senator Van Hollen and the Democrats are plotting his trip to El Salvador today, are incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents in our citizens.”

During the press conference, Ms Leavitt introduced Patty Morin, who described graphic details of her daughter’s murder by an illegal immigrant, before Ms Leavitt left without taking any questions from reporters.

Senator travels to El Salvador

Mr Van Hollen met with the El Salvador vice president during his trip to the Central American country.

But he did not meet with President Nayib Bukele, who publicly met with Trump in the Oval Office this week, nor did he meet Mr Garcia himself.

Judge’s contempt warning

It comes hours after a US federal judge warned that he could hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.

The comments are an escalation in a row which began last month when US District Judge James E Boasberg issued an order temporarily blocking the deportations.

However, lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air – one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras.

Mr Boasberg verbally ordered the planes to be turned around, but the directive was not included in his written order. The Trump administration then denied refusing to comply.