Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is once again going to bat for an accused MS-13 gang member and illegal alien, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, even after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested him on Monday morning.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, has been charged by the Department of Justice with human smuggling and is also accused of domestic violence and abuse of women. Despite that, Van Hollen has made defending him a personal crusade, claiming it’s all about "due process" — a phrase increasingly used as political cover for protecting dangerous individuals who entered the country illegally.
Before his arrest this week, Abrego Garcia met again with Hollen, who previously traveled all the way to El Salvador to meet with him after his deportation months ago. Now, the senator is demanding that ICE release Abrego Garcia, who is suspected of being tied to MS-13 — one of the most violent transnational gangs in the Western Hemisphere — and involved in a multi-state human trafficking operation.
“I was glad to have the opportunity to speak with Kilmar Ábrego García this morning and welcome him back to Maryland,” Van Hollen said in a statement, painting Garcia as a victim of the Trump administration and accusing federal officials of "malicious abuse of power" for attempting to deport him — this time, to Uganda.
That’s right. According to Trump administration officials, Abrego Garcia may now be deported to Uganda, not El Salvador, raising even more legal questions about the specifics of his immigration status and international custody arrangements.
The case that sparked all of this began in 2022, when Abrego Garcia was pulled over in Tennessee. Inside the vehicle were nine individuals with no luggage — suspected illegal aliens being smuggled into the interior of the United States. The car was registered to Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted felon who was already facing a 7-count federal indictment for human smuggling. According to FBI interviews, Hernandez-Reyes said he hired Abrego Garcia to assist in transporting illegal aliens.
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Despite the damning evidence, a federal judge released Abrego Garcia on parole last Friday. By Monday, ICE took him back into custody when he checked in with immigration officials — standard protocol for someone facing deportation and felony-level charges.
Still, Van Hollen insists this is a fight for civil rights and has vowed to continue championing Abrego Garcia’s case. “If his rights are denied, the rights of everyone else are put at risk,” he warned — a statement that many see as dangerously tone-deaf given the serious accusations Garcia faces.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: while Democrats like Van Hollen posture about “justice,” they’re defending a man accused of abusing women and trafficking human beings — not exactly the face of a political martyr. Meanwhile, everyday Americans are left wondering how many more “mistakes” like this they’ll be asked to tolerate in the name of “compassion.”
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