Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey knew he might not be allowed to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia when he boarded the plane to El Salvador. He went anyway — only to be stopped by government red tape. Standing outside a prison in Santa Ana, Ivey was told he needed a permit from San Salvador if he wanted to see Abrego Garcia.

“It was clearly a runaround,” Ivey told The Baltimore Sun about his attempted visit. People waiting to enter the Santa Ana prison told him, “‘Nobody ever gets a permit.’ It was a stonewall.”

“Not letting us in after I travel a couple thousand miles to go do the meeting is — it’s ridiculous,” the Maryland Democrat added. “They’ll let Republican members of the House come in, too. But for me, they drew a line. That’s disappointing.”

While waiting for word on Abrego Garcia, Ivey met with other groups concerned about human rights violations by El Salvador’s Bukele administration. One group included Venezuelans who were related to some of the roughly 50 Venezuelans whom the Trump administration deported despite being in America legally.

The meetings were “pretty intense,” Ivey said. “A lot of tears. A lot of fear. A bit of desperation in some cases.”

“Right now they’re just being held in jail even though they haven’t committed any offenses anywhere in the world as far as we know,” he added.

It’s unclear what happens next.

Ivey doesn’t have immediate plans for another attempt at visiting Abrego Garcia. If the point of the trip was renewed media attention, it succeeded. The clip of Ivey in front of the Santa Ana prison had over 2 million views on Tuesday night. Now, Ivey said the impetus returns to President Donald Trump.

“At the end of the day, Donald Trump could put an end to all of this just by picking up the phone, calling El Salvador, saying, ‘Send him back so he can have his day in court,'” Ivey said.

For Ivey, it was a disappointing setback on a trip built to keep the spotlight on Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was detained and mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March. Ivey left on Friday evening and returned Monday night, accompanied by a Maryland union member and a Latino rights activist who had hoped to see Abrego Garcia.

However, despite not obtaining a visit, he insisted that the trip was successful in one aspect: keeping pressure on the Trump administration.

“My primary focus, though, really is on the Trump administration to make sure that the pressure stays on for them to comply with court orders, including the U.S. Supreme Court order, to return Kilmar and to give all of these deportees their day in court,” Ivey said.

Abrego Garcia was deported after being arrested in Maryland while driving home. An immigration judge had ordered in 2019 that Abrego Garcia couldn’t be deported to El Salvador because of the risk of gang violence against him by the gang Barrio 18. Abrego Garcia previously claimed the gang had threatened his life, which caused him to leave El Salvador for the United States.

After being denied a visit with Abrego Garcia, Ivey posted a short video on social media outside the walls of the Santa Ana facility where Abrego Garcia is being held.

“We came here to visit him today, and now they’re telling us we’ve got to go all the way back to San Salvador to get a permit. That’s ridiculous,” Ivey said in the clip. “They knew we were coming, they knew why we were coming.”

Santa Ana is roughly an hour and a half from San Salvador.

Ivey said he didn’t meet with any officials of Bukele’s administration during his trip. He’d hoped to meet with Vice President Felix Ulloa. But Ulloa was out of town. Aside from being told to obtain a permit in San Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia, there was hardly any communication.

The first lawmaker to try to see Abrego Garcia was Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen. The prison initially denied him entry, but ultimately allowed the two to sit down together in a state-controlled meeting.

Two members of Congress have attempted to visit him. Only one succeeded. Many Democratic lawmakers have continued to pound the table on Abrego Garcia’s behalf, citing the absence of due process before his deportation.

The advocacy has had a limited effect. Apart from his move to the lower security prison in Santa Ana, there’s been little indication that the situation has changed. Abrego Garcia’s imprisonment in El Salvador is approaching three months. The Supreme Court and a lower federal court have said the administration must “facilitate” his return to America. Those rulings have thus far gone unheeded.

Both governments have oscillated over who’s responsible for Abrego Garcia’s return. The Trump administration maintained for weeks that it was El Salvador that kept him from returning to America. Trump disputed that assertion in late April. He said in an interview that he could bring Abrego Garcia back with a phone call.

“If he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump told ABC News. “But he is not.”

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has claimed he doesn’t have the power to return Abrego Garcia. His administration otherwise indicated that Abrego Garcia would remain because he was a Salvadorean citizen.

During a recent court hearing, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis reiterated that the Trump administration has been unwilling to provide specific information on its efforts to bring back Abrego Garcia. Xinis questioned whether the administration was even trying. She cited Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s previous statement that Abrego Garcia would “never be allowed to return to the United States.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously indicated the administration doesn’t believe it has to provide the court such information.

“The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy,” Rubio said during a recent congressional hearing. “No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I have to say to them.”

The Trump administration’s allegations that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member have not been confirmed. However, Abrego Garcia’s wife accused him of physical abuse on multiple occasions, according to reports. His wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, asked a judge for temporary protection from her husband in 2020. She testified that Abrego Garcia grabbed her by her hair and slapped her.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura previously told multiple outlets that the order was a precautionary measure. “We were able to work through the situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” part of her statement said.

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