Wrongly deported man not leaving El Salvador prison, Bukele says at Trump meeting

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele indicated he does not plan to send a wrongfully deported Maryland man back to the United States after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return.

Bukele said at 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 accused of being 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.

Supreme Court battle

Abrego Garcia is at the heart of a Trump administration legal battle after a court ruled he was wrongfully deported to a supermax prison in El Salvador, where suspected members of the criminal gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua are being held.

The Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, who has lived in the United States for a decade.

On April 11, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide updates on what it is doing to return him, calling it "extremely troubling" that it could not say where he was. The next day 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'

The White Hous'se deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, who is also the president’s homeland security adviser, declined to say April 14 whether Trump would ask Bukele to send Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

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“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.”

Though Abrego Garcia is not a U.S. citizen, a federal judge granted him a protective orderallowing him to remain in the country. Abrego Garcia arrived in the U.S. in 2011 after he fled El Salvador to escape persecution by gangs, according to court documents.

The Trump administration says Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 – a claim a U.S. district judge said the administration had not provided evidence to support, according to court documents.

Abrego Garcia's lawyers say the MS-13 chapter he was accused of being a part of is based in New York, a state in which he has never lived.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in remarks at the meeting that the deportations are a “clear consequence for the worst of the worst” criminals.

The Trump administration has argued the Supreme Court's ruling said it was the administration's responsibility to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, but that the government did not have to bring it about.

"That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during Trump’s meeting with Bukele.

The high 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 a lower court's order for the administration 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.

In a letter April 13, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, requested a meeting with Bukele to discuss Abrego Garcia’s detention. Van Hollen said he would travel to El Salvador if Abrego Garcia was not returned to the U.S. by midweek.

"I am deeply concerned that while the Trump Administration treats Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to an Oval Office visit, they continue to fail to comply with court orders to uphold the rule of law and due process by seeking the release of migrants wrongfully being held in Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said.

Government 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 it accuses of being members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post to X that an additional 10 "criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations" had arrived in El Salvador on the night of April 12.

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 United States 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.