El Salvador’s president said in a meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Monday that he would not order the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison.
“The question is preposterous,” Nayib Bukele said in the Oval Office on Monday, where he was welcomed by Trump and spoke with him and members of his cabinet. “How do I smuggle a terrorist into the US? “I am not going to do it.”
He stated that he cannot return Kilmar Abrego García to the United States and will not release him in El Salvador. “I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into the country.”
The comments came a day after the Trump administration claimed it was not legally obligated to secure the return of Abrego García, despite the US Supreme Court’s ruling that the administration should “facilitate” his return.
The justice department’s lawyers argued in court filings on Sunday that asking El Salvador to return Abrego García from a notorious mega-prison was considered “foreign relations” and thus outside the scope of the courts.
According to the paperwork, “the federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” completing: “That is the exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.”
The Trump administration recently admitted that Abrego García, an El Salvadorian with protected status living in Maryland, was deported to a prison in El Salvador due to a “administrative error” on March 15th. In 2019, an immigration judge blocked the federal government from deporting him.
Abrego García’s wife and relatives filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after he was deported without due process as part of Trump’s effort to deport hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador.
On April 4, district Judge Paula Xinis directed the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” his return. On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the directive and directed Xinis to clarify the order “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”.
In a hearing on Friday, Xinis expressed concern about the administration’s failure to comply with a court order to provide information about Abrego García’s location and current status. She directed that it provide daily updates on its efforts to facilitate his return.
The Trump administration confirmed on Saturday that Abrego García is alive and being held in El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison.
On Sunday, the Justice Department interpreted the court’s order to “facilitate” Albrego García’s return as only requiring them to remove any domestic obstacles that would impede the alien’s ability to return.
The statement continued: “No other reading of ‘facilitate’ is tenable – or constitutional – here.”
In a court filing on Sunday, an official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated that the 2019 order preventing Abrego García’s removal to El Salvador is no longer valid due to the administration’s allegation that he was a member of the MS-13 gang, which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization.
During a meeting between Trump and Bukele on Monday, Stephen Miller, White House homeland security adviser, stated that the 2019 order was no longer valid after Abrego García was deported, and that bringing him back to the US would be like “kidnapping a citizen of El Salvador and flying him back here.”
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, reiterated that it was up to El Salvador “whether they want to return him,” not the United States. Bondi also claimed that the Supreme Court decision meant that “if El Salvador wants to return him, we will ‘facilitate’ it, which means provide a plane.”
However, Miller also stated, “No version of this ends with him living here.”
