El Salvadoran President Says Deported Maryland Man Won’t Be Returned

WASHINGTON — El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that a Maryland man deported to his country by the Trump administration will not be returned to the United States, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s call for the White House to facilitate his release.

“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said in answer to a question about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man deported to El Salvador last month.

“How can I return him to the United States? I’m not going to do it,” he said. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

At the same time, said Bukele, a key partner to the Trump administration in its deportation efforts, he has no intention of releasing Abrego Garcia into his own population.

“I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” he said. “We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere and you want us to go back to releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world?” Bukele said.

“That’s not going to happen.”

The Trump administration has conceded that it mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia because of an “administrative error,” but maintains it cannot bring him back because he is in Salvadoran custody.

On Monday, as he sat alongside Bukele, Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was seated on a couch in the Oval Office alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to explain the United States’ position.

“First and foremost, he was illegally in our country,” Bondi said. “He had been illegally in our country and in 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that he was a member of MS-13.”

The current controversy is only about additional paperwork that needed to be done before Abrego Garcia’s deportation, she said.

As for his future, Bondi said, “That’s not up to us. It’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him.

“The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.”

The president then turned the floor over to Steven Miller, his combative Homeland Security advisor and deputy chief of state for policy.

“As Pam mentioned, this is an illegal alien from El Salvador,” said Miller, who was standing directly behind the attorney general. “He is a citizen of El Salvador. So it’s very arrogant for the American media to suggest that we would tell El Salvador how to handle its own citizens.

“That’s a starting point,” he said.

“Now, two immigration courts have found that he was a member of MS-13. So when President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that means that under federal law, he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States,” Miller continued.

“That meant that under our law, he’s not even allowed to be present in the United States and had to be returned to his home country because of the foreign terrorist designation,” he said.

Miller maintains the administration’s deportation order was valid and that a federal judge in Maryland — U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis — “completely inverted” the issue and “tried to tell the administration that it had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.”

“That issue was raised to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said that district court order was unlawful, stating clearly that neither the secretary of State nor the president could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador,” he said.

Asked a follow up question, Miller added, “The Supreme Court ruling said no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States. That means, as Pam said, that it is entirely up to El Salvador to decide whether this individual is sent back to our country, and the ruling said we could deport him a second time.

“There is no version of this, legally, that ends up with him ever living here,” he said.

In the lawsuit filed on his behalf in Greenbelt, Maryland, on March 24, Abrego Garcia maintains that is not a member of MS-13 and that he has lived safely in the United States with his family for a decade and has never been charged with a crime. 

His attorneys argue that his removal was illegal because an immigration judge had granted him “withholding of removal” to El Salvador due to his “well-founded fear of future persecution” there from a violent gang known as Barrio 18.

His attorneys also claim that El Salvador’s Centro del Confinamiento del Terrorismo, the prison in which their client is being held, houses members of that gang.

Xinis ordered the government to take all reasonable steps to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Supreme Court largely upheld the judge’s order last week, but took issue with some of the wording she used and sent that case back to her for further litigation.

The justices held Xinis’ order properly required 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. 

However, the justices also found that the intended scope of the term “effectuate” in Xinis’ order is, “unclear, and may exceed the district court’s authority.” 

“The district court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,” the justices wrote. “For its part, the government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, Xinis issued a new order for the government to “take all available steps to facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return and directed it to provide her with a sworn statement from an individual “with personal knowledge” of the steps the government has taken or is planning to take to secure his return.

So far that hasn’t happened, and the stand-off is seen as potentially leading to a constitutional crisis as tension between the White House and the federal judiciary grows.

In a court filing on Sunday, the Justice Department continued to assert Xinis has “no authority” to seek Abrego Garcia’s return.

“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,” the filing said. “A federal court cannot compel the executive branch to engage in any mandated act of diplomacy or incursion upon the sovereignty of another nation.”

Trump said Monday that he has asked Bukele if El Salvador could build more prisons and added that his administration was looking into deporting U.S. citizens who are criminals.

“If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem,” Trump said. “We’re studying the laws.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue