WASHINGTON — Home Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) ripped two Democratic reps on Friday for making an attempt to fleece his panel’s price range for a taxpayer-funded journey to fulfill an alleged MS-13 gang member whose deportation to an El Salvador megaprison has develop into a rallying level for critics of President Trump’s immigration agenda.
Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Tuesday requested for Comer to approve funding for flights all the way down to CECOT, the huge jail that started housing hundreds of gang members apprehended within the Central American nation amid a sweeping crime crackdown in 2022 — and has since begun holding accused felony migrant deportees from the US.
However the GOP Oversight chairman denied their request to fulfill with the purported MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Friday letter obtained by The Publish reveals.
“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 stated.
“You may be pleased to know that a Democrat senator, Chris Van Hollen, was photographed just yesterday in El Salvador enjoying margaritas garnished with cherry slices with the foreign gang member your letter references,” he added.
“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.”
Home Homeland Safety Committee Chairman Mark Inexperienced (R-Tenn.) accused Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday of additionally “wasting taxpayer dollars” by “visiting and defending a transnational gang member and reported domestic abuser.”
Van Hollen was denied entry to CECOT however later photographed sharing margaritas with Abrego Garcia at his resort — although he claimed the alcoholic drinks have been introduced by the federal government of El Salvador.
“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is,” he informed reporters at Dulles Worldwide Airport in Virginia upon his return to the US.
“This is a lesson into the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what’s going on,” the Maryland Democrat stated of El Salvador’s chief Nayib Bukele. “And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and the president will go to.”
The Trump administration claims Abrego Garcia illegally crossed the southern border into the US in 2011 — and was ordered by immigration courts to be deported after being arrested by cops in Maryland whereas loitering in a Residence Depot parking zone with MS-13 gangsters, in response to data launched by the Division of Justice Wednesday.
One “past proven and reliable source” additionally knowledgeable a Hyattsville Metropolis Police Division detective on the time of Abrego Garcia’s apprehension that the El Salvador native was a member of MS-13’s Western clique who carried the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker “Chele,” a gang discipline interview sheet confirmed.
Regardless of displaying different gang symbols, Abrego Garcia was permitted to stay within the US in October 2019 to keep away from retaliation from MS-13’s rival Barrio 18, an immigration choose dominated.
Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to ship Abrego Garcia and 260 different reputed gang members off to CECOT after a $6 million association was struck between Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Democrats like Van Hollen, Frost and Garcia have pointed to the admission of a Trump official in a Maryland federal court docket submitting that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dedicated an “administrative error” in rounding up Abrego Garcia as a part of the deportation flights.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have additionally argued their shopper has no felony historical past in America to help his elimination underneath the 18th-century wartime authority that Trump made use of.
Federal courts have since ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return to the US.
Republicans and border hawks have pointed to resurfaced police reviews and court docket instances involving Abrego Garcia that present his spouse, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, as soon as accused him of bodily abusing her — and he was suspected of being concerned in human trafficking.
The Publish reached out to reps for Frost and Garcia for remark.
