House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer rejected a request from Democrats to visit El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison, where hundreds deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration are being held.
In a letter released Friday, Comer ridiculed a request from Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Maxwell Frost of Florida for a congressional delegation to conduct an oversight visit to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
The Kentucky Republican cited his Democratic colleagues’ “active hostility” to the committee’s investigations into former President Joe Biden’s border policies over the past two years and said it was “absurd” that they are now “seeking travel at Committee expense to meet with foreign gang members.”
The Trump administration has deported scores of people to El Salvador it’s accused of being gang members, flying them out of the country before giving them the opportunity to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. But attorneys and family members for many of those removed from the U.S. have rejected allegations of any connection to gang activity and some have said that the men were targeted based on unreliable suspicions about tattoos and social media posts.
Garcia and Frost told Comer in their request earlier this week that they intended to visit CECOT to check in on several high-profile detainees — including legal U.S. resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist — whom the Trump administration deported without due process.
In his response, Comer referenced Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s visit to El Salvador this week and echoed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s narrative that Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration admitted to have mistakenly deported to CECOT last month, was being treated well. Comer also referred to Abrego Garcia, who has not been charged or convicted of any crime in the U.S., of being a “foreign MS-13 gang member.”
The Justice Department has pointed to records of Abrego Garcia’s 2019 arrest and Maryland police officers’ subsequent assessment of his alleged ties to the gang. His lawyers claimed that the police assessment “is based on hearsay relayed by a confidential source.” Abrego Garcia’s wife and attorneys have denied that he has any connection to the gang. He has since been transferred from CECOT to a different detention facility, according to Van Hollen, D-Md., who met with him in person on Thursday. House Democrats can still travel to El Salvador of their own volition, but a congressional delegation would allow them access to more resources on such a trip. Comer’s rejection, first reported by Axios, comes on the heels of House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., denying a request earlier this week from Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez for a congressional delegation to El Salvador. Republicans, meanwhile, recently traveled to the Latin American country to visit CECOT on a delegation trip led by House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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