WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has dodged questions about whether it was a “mistake” for Democrats to visit an alleged MS-13 gangbanger deported to El Salvador last month — but claimed Wednesday his caucus will continue agitating for the man’s return.
Jeffries took part Sunday for nearly 12 hours in a livestream alongside Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on the US Capitol steps — and praised Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) for having flown to Central America to oppose Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s detention in the notorious CECOT megaprison.
The Democratic leader also backed Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in an MSNBC appearance last week for displaying “great leadership” by meeting with Garcia for a photo-op in El Salvador, calling it “exactly the type of action that, as members of Congress, we can do to highlight the injustice, dramatize and amplify it and force the administration to comply.”
But asked by a reporter Tuesday whether he agreed with Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) that it was a “mistake rallying around” the accused gang member, Jeffries deflected.
“Our reaction is that Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history,” he said.
One Democratic lawmaker and some staffers also told The Bulwark that the House minority leader has been privately telling his caucus to “slow down” on “the El Salvador stuff.”
“This is patently false, and thinly sourced innuendo,” Jeffries spokeswoman Christie Stephenson responded to The Post in a statement.
“When Leader Jeffries says ‘more is more’ pushback on this lawless administration, he means it. As Leader Jeffries has repeatedly said, House Democrats will never stop fighting for the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia.”
Abrego Garcia illegally entered the US in 2011 and later met and married his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura in June 2019 — while Garcia was in an immigration detention center contesting his deportation under the first Trump administration.
An immigration judge granted him a “withholding of removal” order preventing his immediate deportation just to El Salvador and he was released without the first Trump administration appealing the decision.
Garcia had been living and working in Maryland since then — but was deported March 15 to CECOT with 260 other suspected gang members.
Garcia has since been moved to a lower-security facility elsewhere in El Salvador. Sura and other family members have denied that he has any MS-13 affiliation.
But the feds have pointed to local police reports and immigration court filings indicating the gang ties as well as other accusations of being involved in human trafficking and assaulting Sura, which left her bloody and bruised.
Maryland police arrested Abrego Garcia with other MS-13 members at a Home Depot parking lot in March 2019. Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie that “represents they are a member in good standing,” per a confidential informant, of the now-US-designated foreign terror group.
That informant said Garcia was an “active member” of the gang, held the low rank of “Chequeo” and went by the street name “Chele,” according to a report filed with the Prince George’s County Police Department.
Democratic members of Congress have seized on the case as a constitutional crisis — while side-stepping questions about Garcia’s alleged MS-13 membership.
“We have a lawless president who is ignoring the order of the Supreme Court of the United States to facilitate his return. That’s what’s going on right now. That is a risk to all of us,” Van Hollen said on CNN’s “State of the Union” earlier this month.
“I don’t think it’s ever wrong to fight for the constitutional rights of one person, because if we give up on one person’s rights, we threaten everybody’s rights.”
Jeffries echoed those remarks in a Wednesday speech — without directly mentioning Garcia — and attacked Trump at the conclusion of his first 100 days in the Oval Office.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have failed to make your life more affordable, they failed to make you safer, they failed to make us more respected around the world — but their biggest failure is this, they have failed to appreciate the strength of the American people,” he said.
“They thought we would walk away from the principle of equal protection under the law — they thought wrong.”
Dexter joined Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), whom Jeffries also celebrated Sunday for bringing “good trouble” into the public conversation surrounding the case, as well as Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) in El Salvador during the congressional Passover and Easter recess.
Reps for their offices confirmed to The Post last week that none used congressional funds for the journey, though a Garcia spokesperson confirmed that campaign funds were deployed.
Spokespeople for Dexter and Ansari said their respective members self-funded their flights.
Frost’s reps told Politico no Members’ Representational Allowance monies were used but did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Meanwhile, Republican campaigns have been flooding the airwaves with attack ads following the trips — with the National Republican Senatorial Committee mockingly offering “one-way” tickets for Dems to visit El Salvador.
“Hakeem Jeffries greenlit a trip to support an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member, then turned around and threw his own members under the bus when it blew up in his face,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the House-side National Republican Congressional Committee.
“Now he’s acting like he had nothing to do with promoting an alleged domestic abuser as their poster child. This is what Democrat ‘leadership’ looks like.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which was reportedly mulling a future trip to El Salvador, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
