White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, fiercely criticized Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen following the senator’s controversial trip to El Salvador. Instead of prioritizing American victims of crime or tackling the rampant fentanyl crisis in his state, Van Hollen chose to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a deported illegal alien and reputed MS-13 gang member, currently detained in the harsh CECOT prison.
El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, shared images that shed light on Van Hollen’s actions, sarcastically highlighting the senator’s narrative that deported illegals are subject to “torture” and “death camps.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture”, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele)
April 18, 2025
President Trump took to Truth Social, commenting, “Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!”
Despite the backlash, Van Hollen continued to defend his trip, sharing an update about his interaction with Abrego Garcia, including a phone call to the man’s wife to relay his “message of love.”
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen)
April 18, 2025
Stephen Miller didn’t hold back in his response to Van Hollen’s misplaced priorities:
“I’m almost at a loss for words for how outrageous it is. Here’s an individual—the man who has been deported to his home country of El Salvador—who has been repeatedly documented by multiple federal and state authorities to be a member of MS-13, one of the most violent and ruthless criminal organizations on planet Earth, which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization.
An individual who has been involved in human smuggling and human trafficking. An individual who is a documented woman beater—somebody who has viciously attacked a woman in ways that shock the human conscience. That is who the Democrat Party is going to provide aid, solace, and comfort to—not to Senator Van Hollen’s own constituents, like the Morin family.
Rachel Morin was viciously beaten, brutally raped, and murdered—and her mother never even got a phone call from Senator Van Hollen. Or Kayla Hamilton, a young girl who was attacked in a public restaurant, raped in the bathroom, and beaten to death—murdered by an illegal alien that Joe Biden set free into the country.
None of those people elicit human sympathy from Senator Van Hollen. How broken is that man’s heart? How broken is his conscience, that he doesn’t have even an ounce of empathy, or time, or concern to share with those families?
Or how many of his citizen constituents have been killed by the fentanyl that Joe Biden allowed into this country—by the cartels that made a fortune off of human trafficking and smuggling into this country?
Or the children in his state that cannot even get a good education or good health care because of the mass migration that has occurred into his state?
None of that concerns him in the least. His heart is reserved for an illegal alien who’s a member of a foreign terrorist organization. I’m beyond appalled.”
