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Jeffries Pulls Democrats From El Salvador After Bombshell Blows Huge Hole In ‘Maryland Man’ Hoax

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is urging fellow Democrats to take a step back from their increasingly controversial trips to El Salvador, sources familiar with the matter told The Bulwark. While Jeffries has publicly kept his comments on the matter vague, behind the scenes, he’s signaling that the time for congressional travel tied to the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case may be over, for now.

The pivot comes as new details threaten to unravel what Democrats initially framed as a clear-cut miscarriage of justice. In April, Democratic lawmakers began traveling to El Salvador to spotlight the deportation of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had lived in Maryland for over a decade with his U.S. citizen wife and children. An immigration judge had granted him protection from deportation in 2019, citing danger from rival gangs, but he was swept up in a mass removal operation in March that targeted alleged gang members.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was the first to make the trip, meeting with Abrego Garcia after pressuring the Salvadoran government to move him out of the notorious CECOT prison. Soon after, House members, including Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), and Maxine Dexter (D-OR) attempted their own visit. They were denied access to Abrego Garcia but met with U.S. embassy staff and local activists.

However, what started as a powerful rebuke of Trump-era immigration policy has grown more complicated. Critics within and outside the Democratic Party argue that the effort has become politically risky, especially after it was revealed that Abrego Garcia’s wife had previously filed for a protective order. She later clarified that her concern stemmed from a prior abusive relationship, but the optics shifted nonetheless.

Washington D.C., USA – April 5, 2025: Hands Off Rally at the Washington Monument. Protester holding a sign to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home who was wrongly deported.

Jeffries, speaking Monday, dodged a direct answer on whether Democrats should continue the El Salvador visits, choosing instead to pivot to an attack on Donald Trump’s approval ratings. Still, Democratic aides confirmed to The Bulwark that Jeffries has privately advised members to hold off on future trips. “They want to let the El Salvador stuff slow down,” one senior staffer said.

This quiet shift arrives just as more trips were being planned. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), were in talks to visit El Salvador. One lawmaker noted Espaillat was only willing to go if there was access to Abrego Garcia—a condition that now looks increasingly unlikely to be met.

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Espaillat, who attended Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s inauguration last year, has stayed vocal. “The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is working all avenues to ensure Kilmar Abrego Garcia rejoins his family and receives his constitutional right to due process,” he said, placing blame on what he called the Trump administration’s disregard for the law.

But that position is not unanimous. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) told Fox News, “This is not the right issue to talk about due process. This is not the right case.” Cuellar represents a more conservative wing of the party and has warned that the political liability of defending Abrego Garcia could outweigh any moral high ground.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK USA – April 19, 2025: People holding signs at an Anti-Trump protest against the current administration’s actions on immigration and civil rights in Midtown Manhattan.

Other Democrats worry about the broader narrative. One House staffer argued that continued trips by safe-seat Democrats open the party up to attacks from Republicans, particularly in swing districts. “They should understand that what they’re doing is going to be hurting us in the long run,” the staffer said to The Bulwark.

Despite the internal friction, Chris Newman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia’s family, remains firm: “The trips have proven effective both in the efforts to save Mr. Abrego Garcia’s life and to save Democrats from the quagmire they are in on the issue of immigration,” he told the outlet.

“As a member of a party you need to be disciplined,” a Democrat explained. “They say, ‘Get on a plane,’ ‘Don’t get on a plane’—that’s what you do. Nine out of ten times, you do what they ask. But you can’t take that approach if you’re not having regular communications. . . . You have to be clear in messaging what the plan is and you have to do that regularly if you want to keep people in line.”

And at the moment, however, freelancing might be doing more harm than good.