The White House has hit out at an “appalling” attempt by a Democratic senator to return a father wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday to speak to the country’s leaders about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was removed from the US by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Washington acknowledged Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”.

The US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, upholding a court order by Judge Paula Xinis, but Trump officials have claimed Mr Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang.

Mr Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no evidence of this.

Speaking about Mr Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the Democrats “still refuse to accept the will of the American people”.

She alleged Mr Garcia was an “illegal alien MS-13 terrorist” and claimed his wife petitioned for court protection against him after alleged incidents of domestic violence.

After outlining the allegations against Mr Garcia, she went on: “All of that is not enough to stop the Democrat Party from their lies.

“The number one issue they are focused on right now is bringing back this illegal alien terrorist to America.

“It’s appalling and sad that Senator Van Hollen and the Democrats are plotting his trip to El Salvador today, are incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents and our citizens.”

After making a statement, Ms Leavitt introduced Patty Morin, who described graphic details of her daughter’s murder by an immigrant from El Salvador.

Rachel Morin was raped and murdered by Victor Martinez-Hernandez along a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore.

Afterwards, Ms Leavitt left without taking any questions from reporters.

Senator travels to El Salvador

Mr Van Hollen met with the El Salvador vice president during his trip to the Central American country.

But he did not meet with President Nayib Bukele, who publicly met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, nor did he meet Mr Garcia himself.

In a post on X, he said he would continue to fight for Mr Garcia’s return.

During Mr Bukele’s trip to the White House earlier this week, he said he would not return Mr Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States”.

Along with Mr Garcia, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, who it claims are gang members without presenting evidence and without a trial.

Judge’s contempt warning

It comes hours after a US federal judge warned that he could hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.

The comments are an escalation in a row which began last month when US district judge James E Boasberg issued an order temporarily blocking the deportations.

However, lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air – one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras.

Mr Boasberg verbally ordered the planes to be turned around, but the directive was not included in his written order. The Trump administration then denied refusing to comply.

Charges could be brought forward by the Justice Department, NBC News, Sky’s US partner network, reported.

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However, that could create an uncomfortable situation for the department, which is headed by the attorney general – a position appointed by the president.

If the executive-led Justice Department refused to prosecute the matter, Judge Boasberg said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt.

The judge wrote: “The Constitution does not tolerate wilful disobedience of judicial orders – especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.”

He gave the government a 23 April deadline.

White House director of communications Steven Cheung said the administration would seek “immediate appellate relief” – a review of a decision within a lower court before the case has been resolved.

Israel’s troops will remain in “security zones” in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely, according to the country’s defence minister.

Israeli forces have taken over more than half of the Gaza Strip in recent weeks in a renewed campaign to pressure the territory’s rulers Hamas to free hostages after a ceasefire ended last month.

Israel has also refused to withdraw from some areas in Lebanon following a truce with Hezbollah last year, and it seized a buffer zone in southern Syria after President Assad’s regime was overthrown last December.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said his forces “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria”.

He said that “unlike in the past” the military was “not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized”.

His comments could further complicate talks with Hamas over a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

On Wednesday, health officials said Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 22 people, including a girl who was less than a year old.

Fifty-nine hostages are still inside Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after dozens of others were previously released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Israel’s continued presence in some areas in Lebanon was “hindering” the Lebanese army’s full deployment as required by the ceasefire negotiated with Israel.

The war left over 4,000 people dead, many of them civilians.

Two Israeli drone strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday killed two people, the health ministry said. The United Nations said Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 70 civilians since the ceasefire took effect in November.

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Israel has said it must keep control of some areas to prevent a repeat of the Hamas attack that triggered the latest conflict in Gaza.

The war began when militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 51,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The figure includes more than 1,600 people killed since a ceasefire ended and Israel resumed its offensive last month to pressure Hamas to accept changes to the agreement.

The health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its total count but said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.

A former Labour MP who quit the party over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership has welcomed the landmark Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman as a “victory for feminists”.

Rosie Duffield, now the independent MP for Canterbury, said the judgment helped resolve the “lack of clarity” that has existed in the politics around the issue “for years”.

She was speaking to Ali Fortescue on the Politics Hub on the same day the UK’s highest court delivered its verdict on one of the most contentious debates in politics.

Politics latest: MPs respond to Supreme Court ruling on gender

The judges were asked to rule on how “sex” is defined in the 2010 Equality Act – whether that means biological sex or “certificated” sex, as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

Their unanimous decision was that the definition of a “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.

Asked what she made about comments by fellow independent MP John McDonnell – who said the court “failed to hear the voice of a single trans person” and that the decision “lacked humanity and fairness” as a result, she said: “This ruling doesn’t affect trans people in the slightest.

“It’s about women’s rights – women’s rights to single sex spaces, women’s rights, not to be discriminated against.

“It literally doesn’t change a single thing for trans rights and that lack of understanding from a senior politician about the law is a bit worrying, actually.”

However, Maggie Chapman, a Scottish Green MSP, disagreed with Ms Duffield and said she was “concerned” about the impact the ruling would have on trans people “and for the services and facilities they have been using and have had access to for decades now”.

“One of the grave concerns that we have with this ruling is that it will embolden people to challenge trans people who have every right to access services,” she said.

“We know that over the last few years… their [trans people’s] lives have become increasingly difficult, they have been blocked from accessing services they need.”

Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “But we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.

“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.

“This is the application of the principle of discrimination by association. Those statutory protections are available to transgender people, whether or not they possess a gender recognition certificate.”

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Asked whether she believed the judgment could “draw a line” under the culture war, Ms Chapman told Fortescue: “Today’s judgment only stokes that culture war further.”

And she said that while Lord Hodge was correct to say there were protections in law for trans people in the 2020 Equality Act, the judgment “doesn’t prevent things happening”.

“It may offer protections once bad things have happened, once harassment, once discrimination, once bigotry, once assaults have happened,” she said.

She also warned some groups “aren’t going to be satisfied with today’s ruling”.

“We know that there are individuals and there are groups who actually want to roll back even further – they want to get rid of the Gender Recognition Act from 2004,” she said.

“I think today’s ruling just emboldens those views.”