Homeland Security Committee chair explains why he rejected Democrats’ taxpayer trip to El Salvador

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) explained in an op-ed in the Daily Caller why he denied the use of committee funds for committee Democrats to travel to El Salvador to advocate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Congressional Democrats have been clamoring to go on a taxpayer-funded trip to the Central American country to highlight the plight of Garcia, an accused MS-13 gang member and human trafficker who was deported to El Salvador’s mega-prison for gang members while he had a stay of deportation to that country.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) was the first to go to El Salvador and speak with Garcia, but other Democrats have said they intend to travel there as well. It was reported House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told House Democrats to stop the trips, but his office denied those reports.

Green said he was proud to be the first committee chair to tell Democrats if they wanted to go to El Salvador, they would have to pay their own way.

“As more details come to light, Democrats planting their anti-immigration enforcement flag on his case has become even more repugnant. We now know that Abrego Garcia’s current wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed for a protective order against him in 2020. In the request, Vasquez Sura said that Abrego Garcia told her former mother-in-law, ‘[E]ven if he kills [his wife] no one can do anything to him.’ The violence Vasquez Sura details in the request is shocking and heartbreaking,” Green wrote.

“Abrego Garcia was ordered to be removed by a federal judge in 2019, and earlier this year was returned to El Salvador,” Green continued. “The judge who ordered Abrego Garcia to be removed also stated he could not be sent to El Salvador (or Guatemala — the decision is unclear), because the judge believed Salvadoran gang Barrio 18 posed a potential threat to his life. But was it because perhaps — Abrego Garcia feared Barrio 18 because he may have been a member of their greatest rival.”

On account of the growing evidence of Garcia’s criminality while he was in the U.S. illegally, Green called Democrat attempts “to provide aid and comfort to an illegal alien, and potential MS-13 gang member, accused wife-beater, and possible human trafficker” and wanting to use “taxpayer money to do so” “simply beyond the pale” and “reprehensible.”

Green said he was proud to be the first committee chair to tell Democrats if they wanted to go to El Salvador, they would have to pay their own way.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Senate Democrats during Thursday’s hearing multiple times that Garcia would not be returning to the United States because he had no right to be in the country.

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