Latest news with #CODEL
The Hill
18-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Republicans deny Democrats' requests for El Salvador oversight trips
House Republican committee chairs are denying Democrats' requests to travel to El Salvador and visit its CECOT prison facility as scrutiny builds on the Trump administration's handling of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's mistaken deportation. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) this week denied requests from Democrats to use official committee funds for Congressional delegation, otherwise known as CODEL trips to El Salvador, with Comer calling the request 'absurd' and Green saying it would 'waste taxpayer dollars.' The denials come as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) made a trip to the country this week and met with Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was living in Maryland and whose return the Supreme Court has said the Trump administration should facilitate. But it also comes as House Republicans are visiting El Salvador and the CECOT prison themselves. Several House GOP lawmakers led by House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) visited El Salvador and the CECOT prison this week. Comer specifically denied a request that Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) had made earlier in the week to visit the prison and to 'conduct a welfare check on Abrego Garcia' and others held there, in addition to other oversight. 'It is absurd that you both displayed active hostility for over two years toward the Committee's oversight of the Biden Border Crisis and the consequences of millions of illegal aliens entering the country, yet now, you are seeking travel at Committee expense to meet with foreign gang members,' Comer said in a letter denying the request on Friday. Comer claimed that photos showed Van Hollen 'enjoying margaritas garnished with cherry slices with the foreign gang member.' Van Hollen said in a press conference on Friday that an aide for El Salvador President Nayib Bukele had placed the salt- or sugar-rimmed glasses on the table and neither he nor Abrego Garcia 'touched' the drinks. Claims of Abrego Garcia's membership in MS-13 are based largely on a confidential tip and disputed by him and his family. 'If you also wish to meet with him, you can spend your own money. But I will not approve a single dime of taxpayer funds for use on the excursion you have requested,' Comer told Garcia and Frost. 'Your request is denied.' House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) also said he would deny requests from Democrats to visit El Salvador. 'There is no excuse for Democrats to waste taxpayer dollars visiting and defending a transnational gang member and reported domestic abuser,' Green said in a statement on Thursday, in reference to Abrego Garcia's wife filing for a protective order against him in 2021. 'If Democrats care so much about defending this individual, they can use their own personal credit cards—not taxpayers' money—to virtue-signal to their radical base.' Green's statement came after Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) had made a request for an official CODEL to El Salvador to conduct oversight over the Abrego Garcia case, as Axios reported. Other Congressional Republicans, though, have clearly seen value in conducting trips to El Salvador and the CECOT prison. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) posted about a trip he made to El Salvador CECOT prison earlier in the week, including photos of detainees behind bars. 'Thanks to President Trump, the CECOT prison in El Salvador, which is home to some of the country's most vicious criminals, now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans,' Smith said in the post. 'It is unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country.' Accompanying Smith in El Salvador was Rep. Riley Moore ( who also posted photos from the CECOT prison and said the trip left him 'even more determined to support President Trump's efforts to secure our homeland.' The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador shared a photo on Wednesday with Smith, Moore, and Republican Reps. Kevin Hern (Okla.), Carol Miller ( Claudia Tenney (N.Y.), Ron Estes (Kan.), and Rep. Mike Kennedy (Utah), saying the members visited 'to strengthen bilateral ties and discuss initiatives that promote economic development and mutual cooperation.' It is not clear whether all of the members visited the CECOT prison.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP Rep. Won't Authorize Dems' Trip To El Salvador To See Kilmar Abrego Garcia
A top House Republican is refusing to authorize a Democratic congressional trip to El Salvador to investigate the notorious maximum security prison where President Donald Trump's administration is paying to hold hundreds of migrants from the United States, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old man from Maryland. 'If Democrats care so much about defending this individual, they can use their own personal credit cards—not taxpayers' money—to virtue-signal to their radical base,' House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said in a statement on Thursday. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a member of the committee, wrote to Green on Wednesday requesting a congressional member delegation (CODEL) to El Salvador as part of the panel's oversight duties. She's one of several congressional Democrats seeking to organize an official trip to the country. 'Given that the Administration's use of CECOT for illegal and unconstitutional deportations is rife with 'administrative errors,' she wrote in a letter, naming the Salvadoran prison, 'I urgently request a CODEL to conduct oversight.' Ramirez said the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia and other migrants without due process, calling the actions 'illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane.' Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday, but officials there refused his request for a meeting or phone call with Abrego Garcia, his constituent. Both Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have refused to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return despite a unanimous Supreme Court order. 'The Trump administration is clearly in violation of American court orders,' Van Hollen said at a press conference in San Salvador on Wednesday. Abrego Garcia was removed from the U.S. due to what government officials later acknowledged was an administrative error. Trump officials have accused him of being a gang member, an allegation his lawyers have denied. Several House Republicans also made the trip to visit CECOT, which has a reputation for torture, in El Salvador this week. Reps. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Riley Moore ( shared photos of themselves on social media praising the Trump administration's deportation policies. Moore smiled and held two thumbs up in a photo where he stood in front of a packed prison cell. U.S. Senator Stonewalled In Attempt To Speak With Wrongly Deported Man Senator Has A Warning For 'Every American' As Trump Defies Courts Trump Says He's 'All For' Sending U.S. Citizens To El Salvador
Fox News
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
More Dems work to join Sen. Van Hollen in El Salvador to push for alleged gang member's return to US
Several more congressional Democrats have made statements or issued requests to leadership to travel to El Salvador in hopes of bringing imprisoned deportee and accused MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to Maryland. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., remained in the Central American country as of Thursday morning, after Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa rejected his entreaties to contact or free the alleged gang member on Wednesday. A representative for Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., confirmed to Fox News Digital on Thursday that the freshman lawmaker would be taking a trip to El Salvador to essentially aid Van Hollen's efforts. "Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be home in Maryland right now," Ansari said in a separate statement. "His illegal abduction and the subsequent complete dismissal of the Supreme Court ruling is deeply disturbing. Our rights shouldn't be revoked to propagate Trump's authoritarian agenda. This is a constitutional crisis." "He's already said that he's ready and willing to illegally deport 'home-growns' and American citizens. If this can happen to Mr. Garcia, it can happen to any of us. My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people 'disappeared' – I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here, too. That's why I plan to join my colleagues in traveling to El Salvador to visit Mr. Garcia and make sure Trump's war on our Constitution and due process stops here." Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., also wrote to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requesting a former CODEL (congressional delegation) authorization to visit Tecoluca, El Salvador, where the infamous El Salvadoran mega prison "Terrorism Confinement Center" (CECOT) is located. "Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national legally living and working in Maryland, was subject to a 2019 withholding order from an immigration judge prohibiting his removal to El Salvador," Frost and Garcia wrote. "A Congressional delegation would allow Committee Members to conduct a welfare check on Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as others held at CECOT." Additionally, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is reportedly planning to travel to CECOT, according to reports from Politico and Axios. His office did not respond to a Fox News Digital inquiry. Fox News Digital reached out to Comer's office for comment, and whether other lawmakers had contacted him seeking CODEL authorization. "Squad" member Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., also wrote to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., demanding her own CODEL to El Salvador, "given that the Administration's use of CECOT for illegal and unconstitutional deportations is rife with 'administrative errors.'" While not party to the letter to Comer, Ansari tweeted Monday that "we need answers now" from either government. She said she is ready to join Van Hollen – and Frost and Garcia if they go – to "demand" the man's release. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., also suggested to Axios that travel to El Salvador may be necessary. "We have to do similar kinds of things for the others who are victims of this dystopian attack on our Constitutional rights. This president is dangerous and we can't let this go," she said. Meanwhile, at least two Republicans have also traveled to CECOT, albeit for different reasons. Rep. Riley Moore, tweeted a photo from the prison, saying he just finished a tour and that many inmates were "extremely violent" recent U.S.-deportees. "I leave now even more determined to support President Trump's efforts to secure our homeland," Moore said. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., appeared to comment on Van Hollen's trip in his own post from the prison, writing: "It is unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country." Homeland Security released new documents this week that it says definitively prove Abrego Garcia, who is imprisoned at CECOT after his deportation from the U.S., is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, which his lawyers deny. Abrego Garcia also allegedly has a record of being a "violent" repeat wife beater, according to records filed in a Prince George's County, Maryland, district court by his wife. Fox News Digital reached out to Booker, Frost, Balint, Ramirez and Garcia for further comment.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House Democrat requests Congressional delegation visit El Salvadorian prison
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) has requested a congressional delegation to visit a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent numerous deportees. In a Wednesday letter addressed to House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), Ramirez asked 'that the House Committee on Homeland Security authorize a Congressional Member Delegation (CODEL) to conduct an oversight visit to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador.' In the first few months of President Trump's second presidency, his administration has sent hundreds of deportees to the Salvadoran maximum-security prison CECOT. 'Given that the Administration's use of CECOT for illegal and unconstitutional deportations is rife with 'administrative errors' and many of those who have been deported to CECOT are not, in fact, violent criminals, as a Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security Committee, I urgently request a CODEL to conduct oversight of CECOT. Thank you for the consideration of this request,' Ramirez said in her letter, which Axios first obtained. The story of one of the deportees sent to CECOT, a wrongfully deported Maryland man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has recently made political waves in Washington, D.C. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a rising star among Democrats, called Abrego Garcia's case 'the constitutional crisis' in a video posted on Tuesday on the social platform X. In the video, Murphy argued that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported because he was previously given protected status by a U.S. court. 'Donald Trump ignored that court order and deported him,' Murphy said in the video. 'It was such a brazen violation of the law that the Supreme Court weighed in. In a rare 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court said that Trump had to bring this individual back to the United States, but he still didn't do it. This is the constitutional crisis.' The Hill has reached out to Green's office for comment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
17-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
House Democrat requests Congressional delegation visit El Salvadorian prison
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) has requested a congressional delegation to visit a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent numerous deportees. In a Wednesday letter addressed to House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), Ramirez asked 'that the House Committee on Homeland Security authorize a Congressional Member Delegation (CODEL) to conduct an oversight visit to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador.' In the first few months of President Trump's second presidency, his administration has sent hundreds of deportees to the Salvadoran maximum-security prison CECOT. 'Given that the Administration's use of CECOT for illegal and unconstitutional deportations is rife with 'administrative errors' and many of those who have been deported to CECOT are not, in fact, violent criminals, as a Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security Committee, I urgently request a CODEL to conduct oversight of CECOT. Thank you for the consideration of this request,' Ramirez said in her letter, which Axios first obtained. The story of one of the deportees sent to CECOT, a wrongfully deported Maryland man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has recently made political waves in Washington, D.C. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a rising star among Democrats, called Abrego Garcia's case 'the constitutional crisis' in a video posted on Tuesday on the social platform X. In the video, Murphy argued that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported because he was previously given protected status by a U.S. court. 'Donald Trump ignored that court order and deported him,' Murphy said in the video. 'It was such a brazen violation of the law that the Supreme Court weighed in. In a rare 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court said that Trump had to bring this individual back to the United States, but he still didn't do it. This is the constitutional crisis.'
