WASHINGTON — The mother of murdered Maryland woman Rachel Morin condemned her state’s Sen. Chris Van Hollen Wednesday for traveling to El Salvador to try to return a deported alleged MS-13 gang member.
“I just don’t understand this,” Patty Morin said at a White House press briefing after emotionally describing the 2023 murder of her daughter by Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, a different Salvadoran illegal immigrant who was convicted Monday.
Morin said she was outraged that “a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge — or barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother” chose to “use my tax money to fly to El Salvador to bring back a person some who isn’t even an American citizen.”
Van Hollen is in El Salvador seeking the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a different illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was deported in March.
The Trump administration has admitted that he was erroneously identified as a Venezuelan criminal, prompting a Democrat-led push to return him to the US, which courts have ruled must be done.
Trump officials and El Salvador’s government have declined to make it happen, with the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday revealing that Abrego Garcia was accused of physically abusing his wife in 2021.
This is a developing story. Check back for more information.