Chris Van Hollen during a meeting in El Salvador that he was moved nine days ago from that country's Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, to another facility with better conditions. Abrego Garcia said he had been traumatized by his time in CECOT and that he had been taunted by other prisoners.

Later in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there anyway, later describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but insisting he was in MS-13.