Sen. Chris Van Hollen met virtually Sunday with Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura — less than 24 hours before the embattled Maryland father is set to check in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as it plans to deport him to Uganda.

In a press release, Van Hollen said he was “glad to have the opportunity to speak” with the couple and “welcome him back to Maryland after what has been a long and torturous nightmare.”

It was the first time the politician talked to Abrego Garcia since their April meeting in El Salvador, the senator wrote.

Van Hollen said he told the Salvadoran native and Beltsville resident, who was wrongfully deported then returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges, that he and many others have been fighting for months to ensure Abrego Garcia’s constitutional due process rights are respected “despite [President Donald] Trump’s efforts to deny them at every turn.”

Van Hollen said he credited the federal courts and public outcry with forcing the Trump administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to Maryland, but “Trump’s cronies continue to lie about the facts in his case and they are engaged in a malicious abuse of power as they threaten to deport him to Uganda — to block his chance to defend himself against the new charges they brought."

Van Hollen said he promised Abrego Garcia and his wife that “we will stay in this fight for justice and due process because if his rights are denied, the rights of everyone else are put at risk.”

Abrego Garcia, who was released Friday from pretrial detention in Tennessee, is expected to comply with an ICE order to report Monday to its Baltimore field office at the George H. Fallon Federal Building.

Van Hollen will not attend Monday morning’s prayer vigil and rally ahead of Abrego Garcia’s check-in. He and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), both members of the Senate Appropriations and Foreign Relations committees, will be traveling to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt to observe humanitarian aid efforts to Gaza, and to press for an immediate ceasefire and the return of hostages.

CASA, the national organization serving working-class Black, Latino, African-descendant, Indigenous and immigrant communities that is organizing the rally, has been in close contact with Abrego Garcia’s family since his mistaken deportation to El Salvador in March.

“Kilmar is being made an example of, a martyr for having the courage to stand up to this administration’s illegal deportation practices. They’re throwing the entire federal apparatus at one father of three to prove that no one should dare challenge their authority,” wrote Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, CASA’s chief of organizing and leadership, in a Sunday press release. “These torturous behaviors must end at once. Enough is enough.”