Correction, April 21, 7:45 p.m. • Rep. Mike Kennedy’s office notified The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday that it never received an original request to comment last week because The Tribune used an incorrect email address. This story has been updated to include Kennedy’s remarks about the trip to El Salvador and CECOT.
In the midst of a battle between the Trump administration and the courts over the improper deportation of a Maryland man, Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy visited El Salvador last week, while Gov. Spencer Cox said he thought the administration should bring the man back and deport him legally.
Following the publication of this story, Kennedy’s office notified The Salt Lake Tribune that they never received an original request to comment.
“It’s important to note The Salt Lake Tribune misspelled our email address and that’s why we didn’t respond earlier, but visiting CECOT was sobering as we were face-to-face with prisoners who have committed horrific and unimaginable crimes,” Kennedy said in a statement shared with The Tribune Monday. “These men were once powerful figures outside of this prison, feared by many. These are brutal murderers and rapists, and El Salvador has taken action to put the safety of their citizens first. The United States is doing the same.”
And at his monthly press conference last Thursday, Cox partially broke with Trump and said he thought the administration should adhere to the court order and bring the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, back to the United States.
“The problem is there’s just no nuance in the discussion. It’s like, either you hate the Constitution or you want terrorists living in America,” Cox said during a news conference Thursday. “It seems like those are the two choices, and I think there’s another choice out there.”
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that the Trump administration improperly deported Abrego Garcia and ordered the administration to facilitate his return to the United States.
The other option, Cox said, would be for the Trump administration to comply with the court order to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. and to follow standard due process before again deporting him.
“That person was here illegally and probably isn’t a great person [and] probably should be deported, and so I think you can do those things,” the governor alleged, seemingly referring to Abrego Garcia’s alleged but unconfirmed gang connections. “I think you can bring them back, go through the process and then have them deported. And that’s probably the way it should work.”
Legally, the question of whether or not Abrego Garcia should be deported is a settled one: Multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled that the deportation was illegal, as a court ruled in 2019 that he should not be returned to his home country out of concern for his safety. While administration officials first acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was improperly deported, they have now reversed course. Abrego Garcia, 29, is a father of three.
Cox went on to say that he feels “it really does matter that we hold to these constitutional norms,” but added he feels that “pushing the boundaries of those norms” is acceptable. “The founders saw these types of things happening,” he said. “It’s not the worst thing to challenge those norms.”
Cox’s comments came after Kennedy, a Republican representing Utah’s third congressional district, traveled to El Salvador. The Utah congressman was included in a photo shared by the U.S. embassy in El Salvador Wednesday, along with GOP Reps. Riley Moore and Carol Miller of West Virginia, Jason Smith of Missouri, Ron Estes of Kansas, Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma and Claudia Tenney of New York.
In his statement Monday, Kennedy said of his visit to the prison, “Many of these dangerous criminals have crossed into our country and committed heinous crimes taking the lives of innocent Americans, and the Trump Administration is doing what the Biden Administration would not—enforcing the law, restoring order and protecting our citizens.”
Moore and Smith shared photos Wednesday from a tour of CECOT facilities. On the social media platform X, Moore included a selfie in front of a cell filled with prisoners and another photo where he posed in the prison, giving two thumbs-up.
“This maximum security facility houses the country’s most brutal criminals, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and terrorists. Several inmates were extremely violent criminals recently deported from the U.S.,” Moore alleged. “I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland.”
Smith, who is chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, expressed similar sentiments and wrote that it was “unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country.”
The visit to the prison came as Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, where Abrego Garcia had been living, attempted to visit CECOT this week and speak with Abrego Garcia, but was denied entry, he said.
Later Thursday, Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia, who was shown a button-up shirt and baseball hat during a meeting at a hotel in photos released by the senator.
“This is an example of the much bigger challenge, no doubt about it,” Van Hollen said of Abrego Garcia’s case. “Because my view is when you start picking on the most vulnerable people, and you push and push and push, and you get away with it, then you take the next bite.”
In recent weeks, human rights groups have raised serious concerns about the conditions at CECOT.
“People held in CECOT, as well as in other prisons in El Salvador, are denied communication with their relatives and lawyers, and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time,” a Human Rights Watch declaration from last month read. “The Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave.’ Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”
None of the other members of Utah’s congressional delegation — which includes Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, and Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy and Burgess Owens — responded to requests from The Salt Lake Tribune last week for comment on the illegal deportation, the administration’s defiance of the courts or Trump’s threats to imprison U.S. citizens in Salvadoran prisons. Kennedy’s office did not receive the request to comment due to the same error from The Tribune.
Owens addressed the deportation on X Wednesday, but only to chide Van Hollen for traveling to El Salvador. “This same Senator did not ONCE visit America’s open border to ‘demand’ the end of allowing the El Salvadoran MS-13 gang into our country,” Owens wrote.
Lee, meanwhile, who has been rumored as a possible U.S. Supreme Court pick for Trump, has posted about the illegal deportation on social media, where he has suggested the deportation was not, despite the court’s unanimous ruling, illegal and that Abrego Garcia “deserve[d] to be deported.”
Update, April 18, 9:45 a.m. • This story has been updated to include Sen. Chris Van Hollen later met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and to correct Rep. Mike Kennedy’s congressional district.
