US Senate rejects bill for transparency on El Salvador deportations
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — US military personnel escort an alleged gang member deported by the US to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, at the El Salvador International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador April 12, 2025. (SECOM photo via Reuters)
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday defeated a Democratic resolution calling for a review of human rights in El Salvador, focusing on conditions at a maximum-security prison holding people deported from the United States.
The measure was defeated 50-45, with senators voting along party lines. It had not been expected to pass the chamber, where President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans have a 53-47-seat majority, but Democrats said they wanted to get Republicans on the record about the high-profile issue.
The resolution, whose backers included Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, centered on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was mistakenly deported from Maryland and remains imprisoned in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia, 29, who was living in Maryland with a work permit, was detained by U.S. immigration officers in March and questioned about alleged gang ties before being sent on a deportation flight to El Salvador with Venezuelan migrants despite a protective order allowing him to remain in the U.S.
Trump, who promised an immigration crackdown and mass deportations as he ran for re-election, has said he could help return Abrego Garcia with a phone call but would not, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's April 10 order for his administration to "facilitate" his release.
Legal experts say the case illustrates the risks to the U.S. constitutional right to due process and raises questions about Trump's intent to comply with rulings from courts, a third co-equal branch of government.
"All of us regardless of party should stand up to respect the Constitution, to protect due process and to make it clear that the president of the United States cannot ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court order, which he is doing as we speak," Senator Chris Van Hollen, a resolution sponsor, said in a speech urging support for the resolution.
"Because if he can do it with one person, or do it to two people, he can do it to anybody in the United States of America," Van Hollen said.
Van Hollen, who represents Abrego Garcia's home state of Maryland, traveled to El Salvador last month to see the imprisoned man, and determine whether he was still alive.
If it had passed, the resolution could have resulted in the termination of security assistance to El Salvador.
Republicans accused the Democrats of backing criminals.
"Senate Democrats are voting once again to defend illegal immigrant criminals. They seem to like to do that. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true," Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming said in a speech before the vote.
The White House has repeatedly defended Abrego Garcia's treatment, citing the unproven accusation that Abrego Garcia is part of the MS-13 criminal gang, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist group. His lawyers deny any gang affiliation, as he left El Salvador at age 16 to escape such gang violence and received a protective order in 2019 to continue living in the U.S.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, editing by Deepa Babington)
