‘Not Gonna Happen’: El Salvadoran President Says He Is Not Shipping Alleged MS-13 Gang Member Back To US

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on Monday during a meeting with President Donald Trump that he will not return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant with alleged ties to MS-13, to the U.S. following his deportation.

Trump’s administration has maintained that Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, should be detained in El Salvador due to his alleged ties to MS-13 and previous deportation orders from 2019. Following legal battles over the deportation, Bukele confirmed to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office that he does not have the power to “smuggle” a foreign terrorist into the U.S.

“I suppose you’re suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle, how can I return him to the United States, like I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I’m not going to do it. I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. But you just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country of 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 gonna happen.”

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🛂Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Garcia, who unlawfully entered the U.S. in 2011, on March 12 and deported him to his native country, according to court documents. The Trump administration acknowledged that Garcia’s deportation was a clerical error, though they have pointed to documents provided by Prince George’s County Police Department, which detailed Garcia’s alleged gang name and rank, to argue that he should remain in El Salvador.