Van Hollen Confirms Taxpayers Paid El Salvador Trip; Admits He Didn’t Ask Garcia If He Was MS-13; Miller Schools Press on Deportation Law

Sen. Chris Van Hollen confirmed on Fox News Sunday in April 2025 that American taxpayers funded his trip to visit deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia at El Salvador’s CECOT prison. When anchor Shannon Bream asked “Who did pay for this trip?”, Van Hollen said: “This was an officially cleared congressional trip.” “So taxpayer dollars?” Bream pressed. “Yes, like every other trip,” Van Hollen confirmed. When asked if he had asked Garcia point-blank whether he was an MS-13 member, Van Hollen dodged: “I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is.” White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller then delivered a blistering press briefing, asking reporters: “Do you know the difference between a deportation order and a withholding order?” — revealing that not a single member of the press corps could answer.

Taxpayer-Funded Visit

The Fox News exchange was devastating in its simplicity.

“Who did pay for this trip?” Shannon Bream asked.

“This was an officially cleared congressional trip — cleared on a bipartisan basis,” Van Hollen said.

“So taxpayer dollars?” Bream pressed.

“Yes, like every other trip,” Van Hollen confirmed.

The admission crystallized the public’s outrage. American taxpayers — including the families of MS-13 victims in Maryland — had funded a United States senator’s trip to visit a deported MS-13 member in a Salvadoran prison. A senator earning $174,000 per year had used public money to fly across international borders to advocate for a man who had been ordered deported by a federal judge, identified as a gang member by two separate courts, and caught with MS-13 associates and rolls of cash.

Van Hollen’s defense — that it was an “officially cleared congressional trip” — was technically accurate and completely beside the point. Many congressional trips were officially cleared. The question was not whether the bureaucratic process had been followed but whether the purpose of the trip served American interests. Visiting a deported gang member to advocate for his return to the United States was, in the public’s view, an abuse of the congressional travel privilege.

”I Didn’t Ask Him”

The most damaging exchange came when Van Hollen was asked directly about Garcia’s gang membership.

“Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS-13 gang?” the interviewer asked. “And did you ask him point blank?”

Van Hollen’s response was evasive: “Well, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject. The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights.”

He continued deflecting: “They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts.”

When pressed again — “Since you were the one person to have met with him, you didn’t ask him?” — Van Hollen made the admission.

“I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is,” Van Hollen said.

The admission was extraordinary. A senator had traveled on taxpayer money to visit a man at the center of a national controversy over MS-13 deportations — and had not bothered to ask the most basic question: are you actually an MS-13 member? Van Hollen’s explanation — “I know what his answer is” — meant he knew Garcia would deny it, making the question pointless. But the failure to even ask revealed that Van Hollen was not interested in the truth. He was interested in the narrative.

If Garcia had denied MS-13 membership directly to a senator’s face, Van Hollen could have used that denial as evidence. Instead, he chose not to ask — suggesting he was afraid that the answer might not support his cause, or that the conversation might reveal information that undermined his position.

Miller’s Press Briefing

Stephen Miller turned the press briefing into a legal education session that exposed the media’s fundamental ignorance of immigration law.

He started with a question: “Do you know the difference between a deportation order and a withholding order?”

Silence.

“Does any of you, please?” Miller asked. “Raise your hand.”

No hands went up.

Miller was visibly astonished: “So what I’m getting from this conversation, which is educational for me, is that not one person in the media knows the difference between a deportation order and a withholding order. Is that a fair statement? You’re learning about this all for the first time right now?”

The silence was the answer.

Miller then explained: “The deportation order means a judge has said he must be deported from the country. He has no right to remain here any longer. He must be removed from the country. So his only options are to be deported to his home country or another country. That’s it. There’s no other option.”

He continued: “He doesn’t get to stay here. He doesn’t get to live here. He has no future here. He has no right to be here.”

He addressed the media’s framing: “When you keep saying ‘return,’ because you’ve been spun up by the open borders advocates, you all seem to be operating under the illusion that he would be able to come to the United States and just continue to live here illegally. That’s not an option available to him.”

He stated the legal reality: “His only choices in life are to live in El Salvador or to live in another country. That’s it. There’s no other option legally or otherwise because he came to our country illegally.”

The press briefing exchange was a masterclass in how the media’s coverage of immigration was driven by narrative rather than law. Reporters who had spent weeks covering the Garcia case — writing articles, conducting interviews, and making on-air pronouncements — did not understand the basic legal distinction between a deportation order and a withholding order. They had been operating under the assumption that “return” meant Garcia could come back and live in America. Miller demonstrated that this assumption was legally impossible.

The Fifteen Million Problem

Miller expanded from the specific case to the systemic challenge.

“There’s 15 million illegal aliens that came into the country,” Miller said. “If every one of them got the trial that you’re asking for, it would take centuries to remove them. Centuries.”

He painted the picture: “We’d be talking about this in three, four hundred years. Their great, great, great grandchildren — we’d be the ones representing them in court. That’s how long it would take.”

He stated the principle: “Illegal aliens who come to our country have to be removed and they have to be removed quickly. And that is an essential component of having something that we like to call a country.”

The “centuries” calculation was not hyperbole. With 15 million illegal aliens, limited immigration court capacity, and the multi-year timeline for each individual case, granting full judicial proceedings to every illegal alien would create a backlog that literally could not be resolved within the lifetimes of anyone alive today. The judicial system was not designed for mass adjudication of this scale. Miller’s point was that demanding full judicial proceedings for every illegal alien was functionally the same as demanding open borders — because the practical effect was that no one would ever be removed.

Both Governments Confirm MS-13

Miller addressed the evidence question directly.

“According to our government and his government,” Miller said. “In other words, his government has confirmed on their own intelligence that he’s a member of MS-13.”

The fact that both the United States and El Salvador — the country that arguably knew MS-13 better than any other nation on Earth — had independently confirmed Garcia’s gang membership made the debate over his status purely performative. Two separate American judges had found him to be MS-13. The U.S. government classified him as MS-13. The Salvadoran government confirmed he was MS-13. And Van Hollen had chosen not to ask.

Key Takeaways

• Van Hollen confirmed taxpayers funded his El Salvador trip: “This was an officially cleared congressional trip.” “So taxpayer dollars?” “Yes.”
• He admitted he didn’t ask Garcia if he was MS-13: “I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is.”
• Miller to the press corps: “Do you know the difference between a deportation order and a withholding order?” — not a single reporter could answer.
• Miller explained Garcia’s legal reality: “He has no right to remain here. His only choices are El Salvador or another country. That’s it.”
• On the scale: “15 million illegal aliens — if every one got the trial you’re asking for, it would take centuries. That’s how long.”