Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) met with El Salvador’s vice president Wednesday to request the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a wrongly deported Maryland man.

“I’m not asking him to smuggle Mr. Abrego Garcia into the United States,” Van Hollen said during a news conference after Wednesday’s meeting in El Salvador. “I’m simply asking him to open the door of [the Center for Terrorism Confinement] and let this innocent man walk out.”

The meeting came two days after Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele visited the White House and said he would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Abrego Garcia, whose wife is an American citizen, has lived in the U.S. since he entered the country illegally around 2011, the Associated Press reported.

[El Salvadoran president said he won’t return wrongfully deported Maryland man]

Local police turned him into ICE in 2019 after a confidential informant accused him of being a part of a New York chapter of the international gang MS-13, even though he never lived in New York, the outlet reported.

Abrego Garcia’s family and lawyers have repeatedly said that he is not a member of MS-13.

An immigration judge ruled to protect Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador in 2019, after denying Abrego Garcia’s asylum application, the Associated Press reported earlier this month.

Van Hollen said at Wednesday’s news conference that Félix Ulloa, El Salvador’s vice president, said the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to keep Abrego Garcia in the prison.

According to the senator, Ulloa told him that he could not arrange a meeting or a phone call with the deported Maryland man.

Abrego Garcia is being held in El Salvador’s Center for Terrorism Confinement, a maximum-security prison, after he was deported due to what the U.S. government called an “administrative error.”

[Supreme Court says US must return wrongfully deported Maryland man]

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued an order on Tuesday calling for the sworn testimony of Trump administration officials to determine whether they complied with her previous orders to enable Abrego Garcia’s return, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The testimonies, according to the Associated Press, will come from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security and State Department officials.

Attorneys for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday the government is prepared to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, but his protection from being deported to El Salvador would be removed, meaning he could be deported back to El Salvador or a third country, the Associated Press reported.

Van Hollen said at Wednesday’s news conference that he told Ulloa that the Salvadoran government does not have any evidence from the U.S. of Abrego Garcia committing a crime or being part of MS-13.

The senator said he asked Ulloa for El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia so the U.S. could bring him back.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a White House press conference on Wednesday that Abrego Garcia will not return to the country and that the U.S. will send him back to El Salvador if he is returned. Bondi also said the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return only meant supplying a plane, not working with El Salvador’s government to order his release.

Van Hollen said he will continue to fight for Abrego Garcia’s release and assured El Salvador’s government that more members of Congress will come to the country about this case.

“This is an unsustainable and unjust moment,” Van Hollen said. “It cannot continue this way.”