Ex-ICE Director Ron Vitiello said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who officials have acknowledged was wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador, will be removed again if he returns to the U.S.
"Let's start where it is operationally. If he comes back to the United States, he's going to be deported again," Vitiello, who served during President Donald Trump's first term, told NewsNation's "The Hill" Thursday.
So, Democrats' claim that his case is a constitutional crisis, and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen flying to El Salvador to meet with Garcia, "seems to me more like grandstanding than anything else," he added.
Van Hollen is "negotiating with the government — that's what the president is supposed to do. In fact, in the court ruling it says that this is foreign policy to be conducted by the executive branch, and we're going to be where we are at after these rulings for being deported. That's where this this ends up — he's a native son of El Salvador."
Garcia, he told NewsNation, has "been a known gang member."
"He has criminal activity in his background, maybe not convictions, but he was deported based on the fact that he was in this country illegally. ... He was removed based on the current situation that we see at the border now."