For now, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the young Salvadoran who was in good standing in the United States and was sent “by mistake” to El Salvador, remains in the CECOT maximum-security prison and will not be returned. This was confirmed by both President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who visited the White House on Monday.
Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen with whom he has fathered a U.S.-born son and has a job, had been arrested on March 15 and sent to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison where terrorists are held. He was initially accused of being part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, despite not being from Venezuela. Now, after that claim was proven to be false, the Justice Department says he has affiliations with the Salvadoran gang MS13. Abrego Garcia had never had a run-in with law enforcement before being picked up by immigration authorities last month. The man was the beneficiary of an asylum permit after the immigration court reviewed his case and decided that he could remain in America to escape the violence of criminal gangs in El Salvador. However, he is still in jail, even after the federal Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision last Thursday ordering the White House to “facilitate” his repatriation.
Speaking from the Oval Office, the two presidents did not take any responsibility for Abrego Garcia’s wrongful imprisonment. Bukele declared that he will not send a man the Trump Administration does not want back to the United States, and took the opportunity to defame him as well: “how can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was with them, did not comment.
The American president then said he will deport as many “dangerous” undocumented immigrants as possible to El Salvador, urging Bukele to build more mega-prisons to house them. “And I just asked the president, you know, it’s this massive complex that he built, a jail complex. I said, ‘can you build some more of them, please?’” Donald gave a maximalist response when asked how many he was expecting to deport: “as many as we can get out of our country that were allowed in here by incompetent Joe Biden, through open borders.… We have millions of people that should not be in this country that are dangerous.… We have millions of people that are murderers, drug dealers.”
Pam Bondi joined in on the chorus of American officials washing their hands of their admitted error regarding Abrego Garcia. “That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him, that’s not up to us,” the attorney general said. “If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning, provide a plane.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his part disclosed that more alleged members of MS13 and Tren de Aragua were deported to El Salvador on Saturday night. In a post on X he wrote that “the alliance” between Trump and Bukele has “become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
On Sunday’s in-depth political programs, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia affair was the focus of analysts’ comments. The issue is likely to spark another high-profile clash between the Administration and the federal judiciary over how much power the courts have in resolving immigration disputes by taking its cue from the decision issued by Federal Judge Paula Xinis. The magistrate ordered the administration to “take all available measures to facilitate” the Salvadoran’s repatriation.
“The federal courts” Justice Department attorneys wrote in the brief filed, “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.” They added that officials have the sole duty to “remove any domestic obstacles” that might prevent Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.
Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller harshly rejected claims that the Administration should bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States. “We won the Supreme Court case” he told Fox News this morning. “A District Court judge said unconscionably the president and his administration have to go into El Salvador and extradite one of their citizens. That would be kidnapping.”
Miller went on to say that the “most” Trump could be forced to do according to the high court’s ruling is facilitate repatriation, which means, he claimed, that the U.S. “wouldn’t block him in the airport.”
