WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today joined U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen and 22 Senators in writing to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tedd Lyons. The Senators’ letter urged Secretary Noem and Acting Director Lyons to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father who was living legally, under a protected status, in Maryland with his family until he was wrongfully deported without due process by the Trump Administration last month to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The Administration has admitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of an “administrative error.”
In their letter, the Senators call on the Trump Administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return and ask for responses to questions regarding ICE’s enforcement policies that may have led to this grave error – and what measures they will take to ensure such an incident does not occur again.
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The Senators began, “We write to express our concerns regarding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, an action which the Administration admitted in a recent court filing was an ‘administrative error.’ It is unacceptable that anyone would be deported without proper due process, especially where an immigration judge has granted the individual protected status that explicitly prohibits his return to El Salvador. We demand that the Administration bring Mr. Abrego Garcia home immediately.”
“Per court filings, Mr. Abrego Garcia came to the United States in 2011 as a teenager fleeing gang threats in his home country of El Salvador. In 2019, ICE arrested Mr. Abrego Garcia over an unfounded and anonymous allegation that he was involved with MS-13, which placed him in deportation proceedings. The U.S. immigration judge in the case ultimately found that it was in fact Mr. Abrego Garcia who was at risk of being the victim of gang violence,” the Senators wrote.
“This ruling was made under the Trump Administration in 2019 and was in fact required by law under section 241(b)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act once the immigration judge made the factual determination that Mr. Abrego Garcia faced a likelihood of torture in El Salvador. At the time, the Trump Administration made no effort to appeal the judge’s ruling or pursue Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation further. Court filings attest that Mr. Abrego Garcia has complied with regular ICE check-ins, has no criminal charges, and has had no contact with any other law-enforcement agency since his release in 2019,” the Senators continued their letter.
“Mr. Abrego Garcia is currently being held at CECOT, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador notorious for human rights abuses, after being deported in violation of the law to the very country where his return was impermissible,” they wrote. “And when the Administration makes a mistake as severe as sending an individual with protected status to a foreign prison, it cannot simply shrug off responsibility and allege that there is nothing it can do to reunite him with his wife and child, who are American citizens.”
“On Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in the District of Maryland ordered the government to return Mr. Abrego Garcia to the United States, and on Monday the Fourth Circuit denied the government’s motion to stay the order,” the Senators urged.
While the Supreme Court has since lifted the order to immediately return him to the United States, it also made clear that Mr. Abrego Garcia has the right to challenge this illegal deportation in the lower courts. The Administration should correct its egregious “error” and reunite Mr. Abrego Garcia with his wife and child, who are both U.S. citizens while that litigation is pending.
The Senators closed the letter with a series of questions to Secretary Noem and Acting Director Lyons, requesting a response by April 22.
Joining Durbin, Duckworth, and Van Hollen in sending the letter were U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
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