Bukele says he will not release mistakenly deported Maryland man in meeting with Trump

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump hosted Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, at the White House on Monday as the small Central American nation becomes a critical lynchpin of the U.S. administration’s mass deportation operation.

Local perspective:

The Supreme Court has called for the administration to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident and Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears of gang persecution. Leavitt said the administration’s job is "to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return," but Trump indicated later Friday that he would return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. if the high court’s justices said to bring him back.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration must bring back Abrego Garcia, stating it was "plainly wrong" to suggest the government could not bring him home.

"The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Government lawyers indicated in a legal filing Saturday that Abrego Garcia remains in El Salvador but did not detail what, if any, steps the administration is taking to return him to the U.S. In its required daily status update on Sunday, the government essentially stated that it had nothing to add beyond Saturday’s filing.

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has requested to meet with Bukele to discuss the return of Abrego Garcia. 

"Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia never should have been abducted and illegally deported, and the courts have made clear: the Administration must bring him home, now. However, since the Trump Administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action. That’s why I’ve requested to meet with President Bukele during his trip to the United States, and – if Kilmar is not home by midweek – I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release," said Van Hollen in a statement. 

What they're saying:

Reporters asked Trump and Bukele about the return of Abrego Garcia. 

"That's up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That's not up to us," answered Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Bukele called the question of if he would return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. "preposterous." 

"How could I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States," said the Salvadoran President. 

Bukele said he would not be releasing Abrego Garcia from the Salvadoran prison where he is currently being held. 

"We're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country," said Bukele. 

Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller argued that "two immigration courts found that [Abrego Garcia] was a member of MS-13," making him no longer alible under federal law for U.S. immigration relief. 

"He had a deportation order that was valid, which meant that under our law, he's not even allowed to be present in the United States," said Miller. 

Big picture view:

Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the U.S. more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country’s notorious maximum-security gang prison just outside of the capital, San Salvador. It is also holding a Maryland man who the administration admits was wrongly deported but has not been returned to the U.S., despite court orders to do so.

That has made Bukele, who remains extremely popular in El Salvador due in part to the crackdown on the country’s powerful street gangs, a vital ally for the Trump administration, which has offered little evidence for its claims that the Venezuelan immigrants were in fact gang members, nor has it released names of those deported.

Asked whether he has any concerns about the prison there where deportees are being held, Trump told reporters early Sunday that Bukele was doing a "fantastic job."

"He’s taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn’t be able to take care of from cost standpoint," Trump said. "And he’s doing really, he’s been amazing. We have some very bad people in that prison. People that should have never been allowed into our country."

Since Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit in February, Bukele — whose government has arrested more than 84,000 people as part of his three-year crackdown on gangs — has made it clear he’s ready to help the Trump administration with its deportation ambitions.

Bukele struck a deal under which the U.S. will pay about $6 million for El Salvador to imprison the Venezuelan immigrants for a year. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to turn around a flight carrying the immigrants already en route to El Salvador, Bukele wrote on social media: "Oopsie ... too late."

Though other judges had ruled against the Trump administration, this month the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime law, to deport the immigrants. The justices did insist that the immigrants get a court hearing before being removed from the U.S. Over the weekend, 10 more people who the administration claims are members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs arrived in El Salvador, Rubio said Sunday.

"We’ve also found cooperation in other countries that are willing to take some of these people, some very dangerous criminals," Rubio said during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday. Bukele, Rubio added, "has really been a good friend to the United States in that regard. These are some of the worst people you’ll ever encounter."

Trump has said openly that he would also favor El Salvador taking American citizens who have committed violent crimes, although he added, "I’d only do according to the law." It is unclear how lawful U.S. citizens could be deported elsewhere. Leavitt said such citizens would be "heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly."