SAN SALVADOR/WASHINGTON: Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Thursday authorities in El Salvador had denied him access to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and being held in a notorious prison in the country.

Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday to meet with senior officials and advocate for Abrego Garcia’s release, but was told by El Salvador’s Vice President Felix Ulloa that he could not authorize a visit or a call with Abrego Garcia.

Van Hollen, who is a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Ulloa also told him El Salvador was not releasing Abrego Garcia because the United States was paying to keep him incarcerated.

“Why should the government of the United States pay the government of El Salvador to lock up a man who was illegally abducted from the United States and committed no crime?” said Van Hollen, a senator from Maryland, where Abrego Garcia lived.

The government of El Salvador did not respond to a request for comment on Van Hollen’s visit. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Democratic senator was potentially using taxpayer dollars to “demand the release of (a) deported illegal alien MS-13 terrorist.”

“It’s appalling and sad that Senator Van Hollen and the Democrats applauding his trip to El Salvador today are incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents and our citizens,” she told reporters.

The US Supreme Court has directed the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, after Washington acknowledged he was deported due to an administrative error.