U.S. Sen Chris Van Hollen landed in El Salvador on Monday, hoping to see and check on the condition of a Maryland father who was wrongly deported and is being held in prison there.

Van Hollen said he plans to meet with government officials to discuss 29-year-old Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s release.

Van Hollen posted this video to Instagram before his flight, saying the goal of his trip was “to let the Trump administration, to let the government of El Salvador, know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home.”

He said the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Abrego Garcia was illegally removed from the country and called it a “miscarriage of justice.”

“If we get rid of the rule of law, it’s a short road from there to tyranny,” he said.

Also Wednesday morning, U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the state’s only Republican in Congress, said Van Hollen “shouldn’t be spending taxpayer dollars” to go to El Salvador.

Van Hollen made the announcement of his travel plan on Tuesday evening at a town hall with U.S. Congresswoman April McClain Delaney in Hagerstown.

In response to a question about the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants, McClain Delaney said Supreme Court and district court rulings ordering Abrego Garcia’s return must be enforced.

“How?” members of the audience shouted.

Van Hollen then said, in a seemingly unplanned announcement, “I am planning tomorrow to go to El Salvador.”

The crowd of several hundred, some hoisting signs in support of Abrego Garcia, erupted in applause and gave the Maryland senator a standing ovation.

On March 15, immigration authorities deported the Beltsville man to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador, which lawmakers described as “heinous” and known for torturing inmates. Abrego Garcia fled the country at age 16 to escape threats of gang violence, murder and extortion. A U.S. immigration judge granted him legal protection from deportation in 2019, a protection that has since been reversed under the Trump administration.

A federal judge in Maryland questioned the Trump administration Tuesday about its continued refusal to retrieve Abrego Garcia from the prison, even after the Supreme Court ordered his return to the U.S.

The hearing in a U.S. District Court comes a day after White House advisers repeated the claim that they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country.

The president of El Salvador also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

Van Hollen had requested a meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele during his visit to the U.S. this week. His office had not immediately responded to questions about whether that meeting took place.

Van Hollen requested the meeting after the U.S. Supreme Court determined Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.