Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met Thursday in El Salvador with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Abrego Garcia’s wife “to pass along his message of love.” The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

El Salvador’s Presidnet Nayib Bukele posted images of the meeting minutes before Van Hollen shared his post, saying “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture,’ now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

The meeting came hours after Van Hollen said he was denied entry into an high-security El Salvador prison Thursday while he was trying to check on Abrego Garcia’s well-being and push for his release.

The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 2 miles from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.

“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send Abrego Garcia back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have seized on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.

The Maryland senator told reporters Wednesday that he met with Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa, who said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr. Abrego Garcia by driving to the CECOT prison,” Van Hollen said Thursday.

Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well-being,” Van Hollen said. He said Abrego Garcia should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.

“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.