AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen is the lawmaker who met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador and held in a notorious megaprison. The White House says Abrego Garcia will never be allowed back to the U.S., despite a Supreme Court ruling saying the administration must facilitate his return. Senator Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, joins us now. Welcome to the program.
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Ayesha, good to be with you.
RASCOE: So you say Abrego Garcia is a victim of injustice. President Trump says you look like a fool - those are his words - for flying to Central America to meet with him. What's your response?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, President Trump and the Trump administration have admitted in federal courts that they wrongfully abducted Abrego Garcia and sent him to a prison in El Salvador, and they've been ordered by the Supreme Court to facilitate his return. So the folks who are fools and the folks who are thumbing their nose at the Constitution are President Trump and his administration. If you can deny one person their constitutional rights, that is a threat to the constitutional rights of everybody who lives in the United States of America. So that's the bottom line. They need to obey the court orders and bring him home so he can have due process.
RASCOE: The White House has said that Abrego Garcia is never coming back to the U.S. If President Trump doesn't comply with the Supreme Court ruling, what happens then?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, there are a couple things. I mean, the Supreme Court has the power to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of the law. It has the power to sanction them, and so they should pursue that. At the same time, you know, Trump is paying El Salvador about $15 million to keep people in this notorious prison, CECOT, in El Salvador. They may have to present that request to Congress. And with respect to the monies that they are paying to illegally keep Abrego Garcia in prison, I don't think people want their taxpayers' money spent in defiance of constitutional rights and in defiance of court orders.
RASCOE: But are the checks holding? - because there's a Republican-controlled Senate and House, and then you have the judiciary, which is a separate branch that's supposed to be a check. Are the checks holding to executive power?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, they're teetering. I mean, we are in a constitutional crisis at this moment, the way the Trump administration's thumbing their nose at court orders. This case has not yet had a final determination at the Supreme Court, other than the order to facilitate his return, and they do need to comply. And that's the process we're going through right now, but they are not lifting a finger. We also can put pressure on the government of El Salvador. I mean, Americans may not want to travel to a country that's illegally detaining somebody abducted from America and other things like that.
RASCOE: Trump also says that Abrego Garcia is a gang member. He showed a photo of his hand with these symbols tattooed on his knuckles and possibly that it means MS-13. Did you see the tattoo when you met him? Have you looked into Abrego Garcia's background?
VAN HOLLEN: I did not look at his tattoo. I didn't see a tattoo, but here's the main point. Donald Trump and his administration need to put up or shut up in court. They keep putting stuff out on social media, but let me just read exactly what Judge Xinis said on April 16, and I'm quoting, "no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity has been presented to the court." So really, they do need to put up or shut up in court. That's where we litigate these things. That's where facts should be presented and can be tested. And they don't want to do that because they want to - no, because they want to change the subject here.
RASCOE: In...
VAN HOLLEN: The subject is their admission in federal court that he was wrongfully deported.
RASCOE: In the seconds that we have left, you know, President Trump - some of his highest ratings for policies is on immigration. And there is - over half of adults in recent polls have said they support his immigration policies. Do you think your focus on Abrego Garcia is out of sync with voters?
VAN HOLLEN: No because I think voters support the idea of making sure that we respect constitutional rights because if we deny them for one person, they could be next. There's no conflict between fighting gangs in MS-13 - which, by the way, I've been doing for over 20 years, probably longer than Donald Trump even heard about MS-13. But the idea that you can't do that without shredding the constitutional and due process is dangerous. And I think conservatives and libertarians - when they think about it, they'll recognize how dangerous it is to deprive someone of their personal liberty without due process.
RASCOE: That's Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen. Thank you so much for joining us.
VAN HOLLEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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