A trip to El Salvador by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant deported on allegations of being a member of the M-13 gang, "shows you what the left of the Democratic Party now stands for," Chad Wolf, a former acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Wolf said on "Wake Up America" that "it's not rocket science" for Van Hollen to have asked Abrego Garcia if he was a gang member, which the lawmaker did not do.
"They want to return convicted individuals, MS-13 gang members, individuals that are part of a foreign terrorist organization to the United States," said Wolf, now the executive vice president for the Center for Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute.
Van Hollen and other Democrats are calling for the United States to bring Abrego Garcia "home," but "the United States is not his home," Wolf added.
"He is not a legal permanent resident," he said. "He is not a U.S. citizen and he has no legal right to be here in the United States. He has a final order of removal. And I don't think that the senator [or] the Democratic Party really understands what's going on here."
And even if Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S., he would be arrested again upon landing, said Wolf.
"He would be put in detention, and he would be removed to another safe third country," Wolf said. "There is no scenario in which this individual comes back to live here in the United States, because he has no legal right to be here. We've had numerous judges tell him he has no legal right to be here, yet he remains here illegally."
Wolf said he finds it "astonishing" that members of Congress headed to El Salvador on Monday to advocate for Abrego Garcia.
"I think it tells you where their priorities are," Wolf said. "They don't want to advocate for the victims of illegal alien crimes like Rachel Morin and others, but they're happy to advocate for these terrorists."
Meanwhile, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs last week vetoed a bill requiring local and state officials to work with ICE on deportations. Wolf said the move shows that Hobbs and other Democrats like her are not only out of step with what the American people want, but also with members of their own party.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want their community safe," said Wolf. "They want illegal aliens removed from their communities, whether they're criminals or not."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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