Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Friday that the Salvadoran government is “making a huge mistake,” as he detailed his meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the U.S. who is being detained in the Central American country after being mistakenly deported there last month.

Addressing reporters at Washington Dulles International Airport after his two-day trip to El Salvador, Van Hollen said that the Salvadoran government is being “complicit” in accepting people deported by the Trump administration without due process — and is branding itself “as the place for these huge prisons where people who are illegally abducted are warehoused.”

“That is not a good look,” he said.

Van Hollen, who sat down with Abrego Garcia at a hotel in San Salvador, said he had been preparing for his flight back to the U.S. on Thursday evening when he abruptly received word that his request to meet with the Maryland man had been granted.

Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia said he had been “traumatized” by being at El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, and fearful of detainees in other cell blocks “who called out to him and taunted him in various ways.”

Abrego Garcia said he was transferred last week to a different detention center with better conditions, but still had no ability to communicate with anyone outside the facility, the senator said.

“His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anybody outside a prison since he was abducted,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen traveled to San Salvador on Wednesday to seek Abrego Garcia’s release. While there, he told reporters that his request to see Abrego Garcia was denied twice, including when he went to CECOT and was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint outside the facility.

On Thursday night, he posted on social media that he had finally met with Abrego Garcia.

Van Hollen told reporters that he believed he was finally granted the meeting because the Salvadoran government was “feeling the pressure.” He also addressed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s post on X about the meeting, in which he wrote that Abrego Garcia had “miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’” and was “now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

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Van Hollen said government officials had tried to make it look as though Abrego Garcia was living comfortably in El Salvador. They were “surrounded by video cameras” during the meeting, Van Hollen recalled, and Salvadoran officials initially wanted the meeting to take place by the hotel pool.

“This is a guy who’s been in CECOT; this is a guy who’s been detained,” Van Hollen said. “They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which, of course, is a big, fat lie.”

The Maryland senator said he would continue to work toward Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. and for him to be afforded his constitutional rights to due process.

“And it’s also important that people understand this case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.”

The Trump administration is resisting court orders to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. as it continues to insist that he is an MS-13 gang member. His family and his attorneys have denied that he is connected to any gang.

This post has been updated throughout to reflect additional developments.