WASHINGTON − El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele indicated that he does not plan to send a wrongfully deported Maryland man back to the U.S. after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return.
Bukele said during an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump that he does not have the power to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father and sheet metal worker, whom he alleged is a terrorist.
“How can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele said. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.”
“To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works,” Bukele told Trump. Abrego Garcia has not been charged with terrorism.
Supreme Court battle
Abrego Garcia is at the heart of a Trump administration legal battle after a court ruled that he was wrongfully deported to a supermax prison in El Salvador, where alleged members of MS-13 and the Tren de Aragua gang are being held.
The Supreme Court last week ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, who has lived in the U.S. for a decade.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House, April 14, 2025, in Washington, DC. Trump and Bukele were expected to discuss a range of bilateral issues, including the detention of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who has been held in a prison in El Salvador since March 15.
On Friday, a federal judge ordered Trump officials to provide updates on what they are doing to return him, calling it “extremely troubling” that they could not say where he was. But on Saturday the Trump administration said in a federal court brief that while Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in the facility, he is detained “pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”
‘Up to El Salvador’
White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, who also serves as the president’s homeland security adviser, declined to say on Monday morning whether Trump would ask Bukele to send Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
“He has no lawful right to be here. He was issued a final order of removal from this country, and so it’s up to El Salvador and to the government and the people of El Salvador what the fate of their own citizens is,” Miller told reporters. “We can’t extradite citizens of foreign countries to our country over the objection of those countries.”
FILE PHOTO: Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, looks on during a press conference with other family members, supporters and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the deportations are a “clear consequence for the worst of the worst” criminals in remarks during the meeting.
The Trump administration has argued that the Supreme Court said it was the United States’ responsibility to facilitate his return but it did not have to bring it about.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday during Trump’s meeting with Bukele.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) as prisoners stand, looking out from a cell, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025.
In a Sunday letter, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., requested a meeting with Bukele to discuss Abrego Garcia’s detention. Van Hollen said he would travel to El Salvador this week if he was not returned to the U.S. by midweek.
The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and ensure his case is handled the way it would have been “had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” But it said that a lower court’s order that the administration has to “effectuate” his return was unclear and may exceed its authority.
“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,” the Supreme Court wrote in the opinion.
Trump admitted ‘administrative error’ in deporting Abrego Garcia
Bukele has opened up CECOT, the country’s notoriously brutal Terrorism Confinement Center, for use by the Trump administration to hold more than 270 men that it alleges are members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post to X on Sunday that an additional 10 “criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations” had arrived in El Salvador on Saturday night.
The Trump administration earlier chalked up Abrego Garcia’s deportation to an “administrative error,” according to court documents.
After a plane carrying Abrego Garcia and other detainees secretly left the U.S. in mid-March, a federal judge in a separate case temporarily blocked the deportation, ruling that the plane must turn around.
“Oopsie… Too late,” Bukele wrote with a crying laughing emoji on X the next day alongside a screenshot of a news report on the judge’s decision.
The Supreme Court later lifted the judge’s block, saying Trump could resume deportations of some detainees.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kilmar Abrego Garcia won’t go free, Bukele says at Trump meeting
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