A divide is developing among Democrats over the handling of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, with some openly questioning whether leaning into the explosive issue is a winning strategy as Republicans go on offense.
Four House progressives arrived in El Salvador on Monday to push for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., following Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who made the trek to the Central American country last week and met with the mistakenly deported man. The group has framed the effort as pushing back on a threat to basic constitutional rights.
“This is about due process; it’s about ensuring that we follow the laws of this country,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said Tuesday, after returning from El Salvador.
Few Democratic lawmakers have publicly disputed that premise as they slam President Trump’s defiance of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
But some describe the administration’s focus on the issue as a deliberate distraction from other news, including the dwindling stock market, rising price of groceries and widespread confusion over Trump’s tariff policies.
While the administration has acknowledged in court that the deportation was an “administrative error,” White House officials have since leaned into the issue, labeling Abrego Garcia a “terrorist” and insisting he is a member of the MS-13 gang.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) argued over the weekend that the administration “picked out this case and this man because it’s about a subject that they want to keep in the news.”
“They’re doing it because they want to distract people from the fact that our economy is in a tailspin thanks to them, their tariffs, the fact that you have got businesses that are looking at closing down or not investing, that costs are up, chaos is up, corruption is up, and the market is down,” she added during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Those dynamics are raising questions among Democrats over whether it is a winning tactic for the party to focus on the Abrego Garcia case.
Abrego Garcia’s family and attorneys have strongly pushed back on the accusation that he is in a gang, which rests largely on a single confidential tip. An immigration judge in 2019 granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador, and he has no criminal record in the U.S.
Still, Democratic operatives say the optics matter.
“People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang,” one Democratic operative told The Hill. “Republicans have given us such an opportunity with DOGE and … with Trump tanking the economy. Obviously, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, but I don’t think we can take our eyes off the prize in terms of talking about real, real world impacts and how people are being hurt in their everyday lives by some of these policies.”
“Democrats want to think that everyone has the same morals and values that we do, and we want to think that everyone’s outraged by the same things that we are and we want to be the ones to help people and stand up for the moral injustices. That doesn’t necessarily win elections though, and last cycle was proof positive of that,” the operative continued. “We need to step back and wait for someone to be deported who has a really compelling story that’s devastating that Average Joe’s upset about. That person hasn’t presented themselves yet, and Democrats are battling their better instincts and not just hop at the first sign of injustice.”
Democrats who made the trip to El Salvador, however, are defending their actions. Frost, who said he got back to his district Tuesday morning, argued that the party can push back on several aspects of Trump’s administration at the same time.
“I’m a member of Congress: We have to be able to talk about and message and do things on multiple issues at the same time,” he told reporters. “I can go to El Salvador and advocate for the release, or the return, of Abrego Garcia. … I can do that, and then I can come back home and have a week focused on cost of living because the cost of living has been going up.”
The debate among Democrats is emerging as Republicans go on offense on the matter, putting a spotlight on the left’s response.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) on Monday offered to pay for House Democrats to travel to El Salvador — as long as they “livestream the whole thing.”
“If out of touch House Democrats are so desperate to cozy up to violent gang members, the least they can do is let Americans watch the show. We’ll pay for the plane tickets, they just can’t forget to smile for the camera while they sell out their constituents,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.
It’s been a whirlwind week for the party on the topic ever since Van Hollen laid out his plan to fly to the Central American nation where Abrego Garcia has been held and effectively headlined an entire news cycle for the minority party.
While few question Van Hollen’s motivation, they do wonder whether he was the right figure to take on this fight. The Democratic operative said that despite Abrego Garcia having lived in the Old Line State, it is “very notable” that no border-state Democrats who deal with immigration every election cycle are on the front lines of the current battle.
“The hit on him that he’ll fly to El Salvador on taxpayer dollars and meet with a guy who’s accused of being in a gang, but he won’t meet with the family of gang victims in his home state is a very fair hit,” the operative said. “I think Democrats can be supportive of rule of law, and we should be supportive of rule of law, but I think we need to pick and choose our messengers better and we need to pick and choose our battles better.”
“If you look at the senators who actually have to deal with immigration as an issue in their state in order to win, the fact that they’re not trying to hop on top of this, but a liberal senator from Maryland is kind of tells you everything you need to know about how palpable it is to the middle,” the operative said.
Other high-profile Democrats have also questioned the need to focus intently on the Abrego Garcia situation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is among them, having labeled it a “distraction” from economic tumult.
However, some Democrats believe the battle over Abrego Garcia is a worthwhile one in the grander scale of the 2026 cycle as it keeps party activists and the high-intensity voters — many of whom have been frustrated with Democrats’ responses to other issues — activated and engaged before Trump’s first 100 days are even over with.
“It is April of 2025. The people paying attention right now are diehard politicos, and we need to give our base something to root for because if you just take losses every day, fans stop showing up,” a second Democratic operative said. “They’re the only people showing up to the stadium right now. … You gotta play something for the people who are still watching MSNBC.”
