Salvadoran president says he won’t return man wrongly deported from U.S.
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- Trump administration officials acknowledge Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported by mistake but say they can’t compel El Salvador to return him to the United States.
- ‘Of course I’m not going to do it,’ said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, when asked if he would return Abrego Garcia.
- The Oval Office meeting united two closely allied leaders who share a populist rhetoric and a disregard for democratic norms.
WASHINGTON — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not return to the United States a man who was wrongly deported by the Trump administration, despite a Supreme Court ruling that said the U.S. should take steps to facilitate his return.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, had lived in the U.S. for 14 years before the Trump administration deported him — an act White House officials called an “administrative error.” Although U.S. officials acknowledge he was wrongly deported, they now contend that forcing his return would interfere with El Salvador’s sovereignty.
“This is up to El Salvador to return him,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said Monday at the White House, where President Trump and Bukele met with other officials. Neither Bondi nor Trump asked Bukele, who was sitting a few feet away in the Oval Office, to return the wrongly deported man.
Asked by a reporter if he would release Abrego Garcia from a maximum-secrity prison and return him to the U.S., Bukele responded, “Of course I’m not going to do it.”
The justices gave a partial win to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a Salvadoran prison because of what the government called an ‘administrative error.’
Democrats denounced Bukele’s visit and said Abrego Garcia’s deportation and imprisonment reflect the administration’s disregard for due process and the rule of law.
“Once again, President Trump is cozying up to an aspiring dictator,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “The Bukele regime has for many years rounded up tens of thousands of Salvadorans without due process, and indefinitely crammed them into overpopulated megaprisons.”
Without presenting any evidence, White House officials repeated claims that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, and that he presented a threat if returned to the United States. Abrego Garcia has no criminal record.
He did have a withholding order, which prevented him from being deported to El Salvador, because of concerns he would be harmed by local gangs there. In its court order, the Supreme Court called his deportation “illegal.”
“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the justices said last week in a 9-0 vote.
However, the Supreme Court questioned a lower court’s language that the U.S. government should “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and the ambiguity of the term “effectuate.”
Trump administration officials seized on the court’s treatment of the word “effectuate,” as proof that U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis overstepped by trying to limit presidential authority.
“It was 9-0 in our favor,” and gave El Salvador “sole discretion,” said White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. (Miller also argued, contrary to what other administration officials have said, that Abrego Garcia’s removal was justified and not a mistake.)
The court’s order said nothing about giving sole discretion. It did, however, say the judge should act with “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
Trump’s lawyers apparently rely on that statement as suggesting that facilitating the man’s return means doing nothing to bring it about.
“If [El Salvador] wanted to return him, we would facilitate it — meaning, provide a plane,” Bondi said.
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But Bukele was unequivocal. “How can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? What do I do? Of course, I’m not going to do it,” he said.
The next move lies with Judge Xinis. She has ordered administration lawyers to detail the steps they are taking to bring about the return of Abrego Garcia, but they said Sunday they had nothing further to reveal.
Xinis could order an administration official to appear in court and explain why the government has not done more. Or she could hold them in contempt of court for refusing. Either way, the case is likely to be appealed and end up back before the Supreme Court.
Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident, was deported March 15 to the Terrorism Confinement Center, Salvador’s huge maximum-security prison.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked Bukele for a meeting during his trip to Washington. Van Hollen said he had been in touch with Abrego Garcia’s wife, mother and brother, who are concerned about his well-being in the Salvadoran prison.
“If Kilmar is not home by midweek — I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release,” Van Hollen said in a statement.
“This is ridiculous. The Trump Administration must bring Kilmar home NOW,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) posted on X.
But Trump’s other comments during the Oval Office meeting suggested he may want to further pursue using El Salvador as a foreign holding cell for people he deems criminals — including American citizens. In a video posted to social media by Bukele, Trump is heard saying quietly to the president, “Homegrown criminals are next.”
“You gotta build about five more places,” Trump said to Bukele, likely referring to the Center for Terrorism Confinement, El Salvador’s massive prison which holds 40,000 people — including alleged Venezuelan gang members sent there by the Trump administration. “It’s not big enough.”
The Oval Office meeting united two closely allied leaders who share a populist rhetoric and a disregard for democratic norms.
Bukele, a 43-year-old former marketing executive who has described himself as an “instrument of God” and the “world’s coolest dictator,” came to power in 2019 and quickly made global headlines by making El Salvador the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
Faced with some of the highest homicide rates in the world, his government first tried to contain the violence by secretly negotiating a truce with gangsters.
When that failed, Bukele declared a state of emergency that suspended civil liberties as authorities jailed some 85,000 people — including about 5% of the nation’s men between the ages of 18 and 35. Many of the people locked up were not criminals, human rights advocates say, and some were children as young as 12. Dozens of inmates have died in his prisons.
Pro-democracy activists and journalists cried foul, but as homicides plunged, Bukele’s approval ratings skyrocketed.
That support was crucial last year when Bukele engineered a constitutional change that allowed him to seek a prohibited second term. He won with 83% of the vote.
His popularity has made him a hero of the American right, with Bukele speaking at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference and taking meetings with Elon Musk. Like Trump, who during Monday’s meeting repeatedly berated a CNN reporter who was present, Bukele abhors traditional media, preferring to disseminate his messages via TikTok over granting interviews with journalists.
Many of El Salvador’s investigative journalists have been forced to flee the country amid a campaign that targeted them with spyware.
Bukele’s government has also gone to war with human rights advocates, detaining at least 21 of them, according to a U.S.-based think tank, the Washington Office on Latin America. The group on Monday warned against Trump’s alliance with Bukele. “Behind the handshake and praise lie grave human rights violations and threats to democracy,” it said.
Pinho and Savage reported from Washington and Linthicum from Mexico City.
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