Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said it was “preposterous” for him to return a Maryland man to the United States mistakenly deported to El Salvador by President Donald Trump‘s administration.
“The question is preposterous,” Bukele said while meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Bukele, the first Latin American president to visit the White House since Trump was reelected, also shot down questions about releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man, from prison.
“We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” he said. “We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. And you want us to go back into … releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.”
Trump interjected to say the media “would love it.”
“These are sick people,” he added.
Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite being granted protective status.
A federal judge ordered his return before the Supreme Court intervened and ruled that the Trump White House must “facilitate” it.
A federal judge also ordered the Trump administration to provide daily reports on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and what steps are being taken to bring him back to the U.S.
However, the Trump administration has said U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to compel El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia.
“First and foremost, he was illegally in our country. 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,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” Bondi said. “That’s not up to us, the Supreme Court ruled president, that if El Salvador wants to return, this is international matters, foreign affairs, if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it meaning provide a plane.”
“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 as a starting point,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said.
The Trump administration also pushed back against what it sees as the judicial system controlling U.S. foreign policy.
“I can tell you this, Mr. President … the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It’s that simple. End of story.”
Before Bukele’s meeting, the White House said it had no duty to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that the administration was not under orders to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
“The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear,” Leavitt said. “That is the administration’s responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return.”
Hours before the Oval Office meeting, Miller said there was no cap on how many illegal immigrants the Trump administration may deport to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS IT HAS NO DUTY TO RETURN DEPORTED MIGRANT FROM EL SALVADOR
Trump echoed those remarks, saying he wants to deport “as many as possible” illegal immigrants to El Salvador.
Bukele recently received $6 million from the Trump administration in exchange for taking in 238 Venezuelans accused of being part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
