A Maryland congressman has returned to the U.S. from El Salvador having failed in his attempt to meet deported illegal migrant and suspected MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Rep. Glenn Ivey said he was “stonewalled” in his efforts to check on the welfare of Abrego Garcia, whose deportation in March has become a deeply polarizing issue for Republicans and Democrats. The Trump administration accuses Abrego Garcia of also being a human trafficker and a wife beater, while Democrats say he is a “Maryland man” who was not given his due process in court before being deported.
“I was very, not just disappointed, but angry, actually,” Ivey told reporters after returning from his trip Tuesday morning.
Rep. Glenn Ivey speaks during a press conference to share insights from his visit to El Salvador, top right, Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, bottom right. While in El Salvador, he met human rights defenders and community leaders. (Truth Social, left, Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, top right, Fox News, bottom left,)
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Ivey, who said he did not use taxpayer money to fund his trip, said he had arranged with embassies in the U.S. and in El Salvador to meet Abrego Garcia in prison but was met with bureaucratic hurdles when he got there. Ivey said he was told he had to obtain a permit at a location 90 minutes away, which blocked his plans.
“And I won’t tell you what I said, but I mean, it’s ridiculous that an international delegation would get that kind of treatment, especially when we’re making this kind of request,” Ivey said.
WATCH: Democrat Rep. Glenn Ivey fumes he was not allowed access to Kilmar Abrego Garcia
He didn’t say if he attempted to get a permit but added that locals also told them no one—not even families—were getting permits to visit loved ones in detention.
“It was a clear run around and not a way that a foreign government should be treating the Congress of the United States,” he said.
Ivey said he wanted to see Abrego Garcia to confirm the detainee’s condition, location and ensure he receives due process in U.S. courts. Several other Democrats, including Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, have rushed to meet with Abrego Garcia and decried what they said was a lack of due process extended to him.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia at an undisclosed location on April 17, 2025, in San Salvador. (Sen. Van Hollen’s Office via Getty Images)
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When asked about Abrego Garcia’s condition, Ivey told reporters, “Nothing’s been confirmed along those lines. We believe he is and we believe he’s at Santa Ana. But they didn’t confirm that yesterday. So it was kind of a runaround.”
In a video posted to X on Monday, Ivey wrote that he traveled to the Central American country to visit his “constituent” and called on the government there to “cut the crap.”
Abrego Garcia was sent in March to El Salvador’s notoriously high-security prison equipped to handle violent gang members, known as CECOT, which sparked Van Hollen to lead the surge of Democrats traveling there. The Trump administration has repeatedly cited court and police documents showing that the El Salvadoran man was not only in the U.S. illegally, but also connected to the MS-13 gang and that his wife had sounded the alarm to police about his violence.
Court records show Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed a protective order against her husband in August 2020. The order said their shared son and stepchildren needed protection from Abrego Garcia, accusing him of verbal and physical abuse against her and mental abuse against her children.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, speaks with Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., outside the United States District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on May 16, 2025. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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Some Democrats and left-wing media have characterized Abrego Garcia as a “family man” who was wrongly deported back in March and the following weeks.
Ivey, meanwhile, also railed over what he said were more than 250 Venezuelans jailed in El Salvador after deportation from the U.S., claiming that around 50 of them have no criminal records and were sent to a country where they have no pending offenses.
“That’s un-American. That’s not what we should be doing,” Ivey said.
Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
