In an international game of tug-of-war, one man is at the center. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who was legally living in Maryland for 15 years with his wife, a U.S. citizen, when he was suddenly deported to a prison in El Salvador last month.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that officials wrongfully deported Abrego Garcia and ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return to the U.S. The Trump administration admits the deportation was an “administrative error,” but says it does not have the jurisdiction to bring Abrego Garcia back.
Abrego Garcia’s return was further complicated on Monday, when El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said in a meeting with President Trump that he would not return Garcia.
“How can I return him to the United States? [Do] I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Abrego Garcia does not have a criminal record in the U.S. However, he was sent to El Salvador with others accused of gang involvement. The U.S. government has not offered proof of this.
The Trump administration has not taken the initiative to return him; Trump has left it up to El Salvador. In the meeting with Bukele, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the decision is in El Salvador’s hands.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us ... This is international matters, foreign affairs, if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it,” Bondi said.
In an interview with CNN, Financial Times editor Edward Luce called Trump’s meeting with Bukele unprecedented.
“It was something I’ve never quite seen before. The leader of a small Central American country sitting there, being asked whether he would comply with the Supreme Court’s unanimous order of 9-0 to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. [He] says no; he wouldn’t smuggle a terrorist back into the United States,” Luce said.
The struggle for Abrego Garcia between the Supreme Court and Bukele, backed by Trump, is part of a larger battle over immigration policy. The Trump administration has deported more than 200 people to a mega-jail in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act from 1789. The Act has only been used three times in history, and many deportees are not from El Salvador, but from Venezuela.
The White House claims those deported, including Abrego Garcia, are involved in gangs, which Trump has promised to “eliminate.” Abrego Garcia’s lawyer says he was not part of a gang.
Trump has also floated the idea of outsourcing the incarceration of what he called “homegrown criminals.”
Luce said the collaboration between El Salvador and the United States could expand Trump’s ability to send people to be incarcerated there.
“That’s alongside with discussing with President Trump the expansion of El Salvadorian jails to include, now we’ve discovered from Trump’s answer, potentially American citizens as well,” Luce said.
Last week, a federal judge ordered daily updates on Abrego Garcia’s return. It is unknown if further legal action will be taken after Bukele’s visit.
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