House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is privately signaling to fellow Democrats that it’s time to hit pause on trips to El Salvador aimed at spotlighting the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a move reflecting growing internal tensions over how the party is handling border security and immigration enforcement optics in the 2026 cycle.
Though Jeffries has publicly said Democrats are committed to securing Abrego Garcia’s return from a notorious Salvadoran prison, sources told The Bulwark that the New York Democrat has discouraged more lawmakers from traveling to the country.
One senior House staffer described the leadership’s position bluntly: “They want to let the El Salvador stuff slow down.”
“This is patently false, and thinly sourced innuendo,” said Jeffries staffer Christie Stephenson. “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.”
The issue has divided Democrats.
Progressives have embraced Abrego Garcia’s case as a symbol of what they say are unconstitutional deportations under President Donald Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown. But moderates are increasingly uneasy, pointing to the political risk of rallying around a figure with a checkered past.
Jeffries, who once demanded that Abrego Garcia be returned “immediately before he is killed,” has not publicly addressed whether he supports the strategy of sending congressional delegations to El Salvador.
DEMOCRAT FAULTS HIS OWN PARTY FOR PICKING WRONG BATTLE WITH CASE OF DEPORTED MS-13 SUSPECT
His spokesperson recently dismissed reports that he is pulling back from the issue as “thinly sourced” but did not deny the substance when initially contacted by The Bulwark.
The stakes are high. As Fox News Digital previously reported, Abrego Garcia, who was deported alongside more than 200 others, reportedly has ties to the violent MS-13 gang and was named in a 2022 Homeland Security investigation into human smuggling.
Though never charged, he was stopped while transporting eight undocumented passengers, and court documents in Maryland show a history of alleged domestic violence, including a judge labeling him a “violent repeat offender.”
Despite this, Democrat lawmakers like Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have flown to El Salvador in recent weeks to draw attention to Abrego Garcia’s detention. Van Hollen’s visit particularly sparked memes online with the now-infamous “margarita-gate” incident.
Critics within the party now worry that continued focus on the case and trips perceived as sympathetic to a deported gang suspect could backfire.
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“There’s a moral argument to be made,” one Democrat aide told The Bulwark, “but it’s not clear this is the right poster case, and it’s definitely not the right political moment.”