Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele made clear on Monday that he has no plans to send Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
At a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Bukele and cabinet members pointed to each other for who could return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Bukele said he wouldn’t do it: “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said in the Oval Office.
The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador about a month ago in spite of a court ruling that he could not be sent there due to potential danger there. An administration attorney said the deportation was a mistake, and a judge has ordered the administration to bring him back.
The ongoing court battle is testing both the courts’ authority over Trump and their willingness to push back.
The White House and top officials reiterated on Monday that they don’t believe they are obligated to return Abrego Garcia, insisting he was a member of the gang MS-13. He was not charged with a crime and is not a member of the gang, according to his attorneys.
The Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court decision that the federal government help Abrego Garcia return, with some limits. The administration doesn’t necessarily have to be successful in his return but prove that they tried; SCOTUS also said the prior lower court ruling might have tread on executive authority.
In response to a federal judge’s order that plans be made to bring Abrego Garcia back, the Trump administration said Sunday that it is not required to explicitly engage El Salvador’s government to have Abrego Garcia returned. The Department of Justice contends that SCOTUS only required the U.S. to allow him to return if El Salvador releases him.
“He’s a citizen of El Salvador. So it’s very arrogant, even for American media, to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens,” deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller said.
Bukele’s involvement in the U.S. deportations was of his own making: He offered to accept U.S. deportees, housing them in a mega prison his administration opened in 2023 that has been the subject of human rights concerns. The Trump administration has since deported hundreds of migrants alleged to be members of the gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador under the agreement.
It’s earned Bukele near unwavering support from the Trump administration. Their meeting in the Oval Office was filled with a steady stream of compliments to Bukele from various federal officials.
“I want to just say hello to the people of El Salvador and say they have one hell of a president,” Trump said early into the conference.
After concerns about Abrego Garcia’s deportation emerged, Congress started to get involved, and Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen has also requested a meeting with Bukele to discuss. Abrego Garcia was reported alive as of Saturday.
Speaking to press before the meeting, Miller dismissed the idea that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported.
“No one was mistakenly sent anywhere. The only mistake that was made is a lawyer put an incorrect line in a legal filing that’s since been relieved of doing it,” Miller said. “He is El Salvadoran. He is an illegal alien. He was deported to El Salvador. I would welcome anyone here to tell me what country they think we should be sending El Salvador illegal aliens to.”
In the Oval Office, the president and administration officials said there will be more deportations to come — including potentially of U.S. citizens.
“We have bad ones too,” Trump said about “homegrown” criminals. “I’m talking about violent people. ‘'m talking about really bad people. Really bad people, every bit as bad as the ones coming in.”
“We’re studying the laws right now, Pam is studying. If we can do that, that’s good,” Trump added of the idea of deporting U.S. citizens.
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.