The White House strongly criticized Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) for his trip to El Salvador on Memorial Day to try to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was deported from the U.S. because of alleged ties to the MS-13 gang and trafficking in persons. The White House said Ivey was putting the rights of a suspected criminal ahead of the safety of American citizens during the visit, which they called “shameful.”
Garcia used to live in Rep. Ivey’s district, and he went to El Salvador to check on his constituent’s health, even though the Salvadoran government wouldn’t let him in. Lawmaker vented his anger on X (formerly Twitter), saying that officials were blocking his attempts to check on Garcia. He said, “If there’s nothing to hide,” then the government should let him.
Ivey posted, “I’m the congressman who represents Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and I came all the way down from the U.S. after we talked to their ambassador and made formal requests to the El Salvadoran government through our ambassador.” “We need to get him back home.” We will get there, or I won’t stop.
There has been a lot of heated discussion about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case. He is from El Salvador and was removed in 2017. Garcia was deported because the Trump administration said he was connected to MS-13 and had a criminal past. However, many Democrats, including Ivey, say he did not get due process and should be allowed to come back to the United States.
Deporting Abrego Garcia caused a lot of discussion about immigration after he was arrested in 2017 on several charges. Reports that he had been involved in selling people and physically abusing his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, were used against him. In 2022, Garcia was stopped by a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer who thought he might be involved in a human trafficking scheme. This was a separate incident from the main case.
It was clear that the White House did not agree with Ivey’s actions. They also spoke out strongly against the Maryland congressman, calling his actions a “pathetic stunt” that made the Democratic Party look bad. According to an interview with Fox News Digital, White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson spoke out against the visit, calling Garcia a “MS-13 terrorist, human trafficker, and wife beater.” Jackson also said, “This pathetic stunt tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the modern Democrat Party—they’re putting criminal illegals over American citizens all the time.”
The charges against Garcia paint a disturbing picture of a violent and involved in organized crime man. Many Democrats, including Ivey and fellow Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, have fought for Garcia’s case. In fact, both Ivey and Van Hollen went to El Salvador to raise awareness and do health checks on Garcia. Some Democrats, including Ivey, think that Garcia should be able to defend himself in a fair hearing in the U.S.
Along with the debate over Garcia’s deportation, the White House brought up the case of Rachel Morin, a woman from Maryland who was brutally killed in 2023. The murder suspect was in the United States illegally, but he wasn’t sent back to his home country right away. Many people saw this as an example of how dangerous illegal immigration is and wanted the border to be patrolled more strictly.
The White House posted pictures next to each other of President Trump speaking with Patty Morin, Rachel Morin’s grieving mother, and Sen. Van Hollen sitting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This seemed to be an attempt to show how different the two situations were. The words “We are not the same” were written below the tweet.
Van Hollen defended what he did in an interview with Fox News, saying that there was no link between Garcia’s case and the sad death of Rachel Morin. He said over and over that he felt very sorry for all victims of violence, but he still stood by Garcia’s right to due process.
Ivey agreed and said that he had spent his whole career pursuing violent criminals and speaking up for crime victims. When the White House criticized Ivey, she said that the Trump administration had cut money to important programs like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), which made people wonder how committed they were to helping victims.
“I find it hard to believe that the [Trump] Administration, who recently cut funding to VAWA and VOCA grants, is attacking a former prosecutor who has empathized with victims of violent crime for many years,” Ivey said in an email to Fox News. “Having prosecuted real gang members and criminals to hold them accountable for families who lost loved ones, I was recently awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Maryland Crime Victims Fund.”
In his last words, Ivey stressed that Garcia had a family in the U.S., with a wife and three American-citizen children. He said the U.S. government should give Garcia a chance to be heard in court and prove the charges against him.
I went to see Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is married to an American citizen, has three American children, and lived in my district when he was wrongfully detained and sent away. I wanted to make sure he could safely get back to Maryland for his court date, Ivey said. “The Administration needs to back up what they say about Mr. Garcia in court, under oath.” Their time has come to put up or shut up. “Get Kilmar home right now.”
Both sides of the argument are still coming to very different opinions about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case. One thing is for sure: this Memorial Day event has made people all over the country talk about immigrants, due process, and the balance between safety and justice.
