WASHINGTON 

US President Donald Trump on Friday slammed a Democratic senator for meeting with a man who was living in his state when immigration authorities took him into custody and wrongly deported him to El Salvador.

"Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!" Trump said on social media.

His remarks came a day after Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the White House acknowledged it wrongly deported to El Salvador last month, where he was put in prison. Previously, Kristi Noem, Trump’s homeland security secretary, visited the same prison and posed with inmates there, as did members of Congress from Trump’s Republican Party.

Abrego Garcia, a US resident with a valid work permit, was living in the state of Maryland with his wife, a US citizen, and they were raising three children at the time of his arrest. A previous court order had barred his deportation to El Salvador, citing dangers to his safety.

The Trump administration has branded Abrego Garcia a “terrorist,” but has produced no evidence, and before he was deported denied his chance for due process to defend himself, as is standard under US law.

Van Hollen has actively pushed for his return to the US, despite facing repeated obstruction from Salvadoran authorities.

The senator said Wednesday that he was heading to El Salvador to check on Abrego Garcia, to keep his promise to Abrego Garcia’s wife to do all he could to arrange for his freedom.

"I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love," Van Hollen said Thursday on X, sharing a photo with Abrego Garcia.

The case has attracted international attention due to its connection with the mass deportation program supported by Trump and El Salvador’s prison policies under Nayib Bukele. The two administrations collaborated to transfer immigrants living in the US accused of gang affiliation to El Salvador’s high-security prisons, and have done so without offering the immigrants due process. Multiple reports have emerged of people with no criminal convictions or gang ties being wrongfully sent to the prison.

According to the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was apprehended and deported under allegations linking him to the MS-13 gang – a Salvadoran criminal group designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Trump.

After legal wrangling in federal court, the US Supreme Court stepped in last week and ordered the Trump administration to give details on Abrego Garcia's status and to “facilitate” his return to the US.

A US judge ordered Tuesday that Trump administration officials be questioned under oath as part of a two-week process of "expedited discovery" to determine whether the government is doing enough to try to bring back Abrego Garcia.