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.
A judge granted Garcia protected status known as “withholding of removal” in October 2019 after determining that he would likely be persecuted by gangs if deported back to El Salvador, according to the court documents. He settled in Maryland, married American citizen Jennifer Vasquez Sura and has one child.
The administration challenged an order directed by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama-appointed judge, who ruled Garcia’s return to the U.S. must be effectuated. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts halted the judge’s order in an April 7 ruling, stating that the U.S. cannot “compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding.”
The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled on Thursday that the U.S. should “facilitate” the return of Garcia, and directed the lower court to clarify its order.
“The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,” the order states. “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.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on “America’s Newsroom” Monday that if El Salvador voluntarily sent Garcia back, he would be placed back into the hands of ICE and deported to a different country. He further said that an immigration judge’s holding order on Garcia’s deportation in 2019 is invalid since since he is allegedly a member of a foreign terrorist organization.
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