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El Salvador’s leader will not return man deported from the US in error
8:00 CAT | 15 Apr 2025
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador meets with U.S. President Trump at the White House on Monday. [Photo: AFP/Brendan Smialowski ]
El Salvador will not return Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the US government deported to his home country where he is being held in a mega-prison.
President Nayib Bukele made the comments during a meeting on Monday at the White House with Donald Trump, with whom he shares a strong relationship.
The US Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Mr Ábrego García, who was living in Maryland with his family and was granted protection from deportation by a court in 2019.
The Trump administration argues it cannot bring him home, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him”.
Trump praised Bukele for a new partnership under which the US can deport people it alleges are gang members to the Central American nation. Mr Ábrego García, whose lawyer said he is not a gang member, was among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans the Trump administration deported to El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot).
During Monday’s visit, Trump also repeated that he wanted to deport some violent criminals who are US citizens to Salvadoran prisons if his administration determined it was legal.
“We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump told reporters.
“I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” the US president added.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 10 alleged gang members were sent there, despite legal challenges over those it already deported. The US considers them suspected members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs, which are designated as “foreign terrorist organisations” by Trump.
In response to an earlier ruling by the US Supreme Court that the administration should facilitate the release of Mr Ábrego García, lawyers wrote on Sunday that the issue was a matter of foreign policy – and outside the control of the courts.
Trump told reporters last week that if the Supreme Court said “bring somebody back, I would do that”.
The justice department cited Bukele’s comments that Mr Ábrego García would not be returned to the US as an update in their latest court filing.
Mr Ábrego García’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, said the “Trump and Bukele administrations continue to play political games with his life”.
“My heart is heavy, but I hold on to hope and the strength of those around me. For our children, our family, and all immigrants fighting for loved ones – Kilmar, we will not stop fighting for you,” she said in a statement.
The US government has conceded Mr Ábrego García was deported because of an “administrative error”, though it also says he is a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyer denies.
Officials were ordered to provide daily updates on steps being taken to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US.
Relations between Trump and Bukele have flourished since the US president’s return to the White House in January, after Bukele agreed to take US deportees, which has helped Trump in his pledge to enact mass deportations.
Writing on X, Rubio said the alliance was an “example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.
Ahead of Bukele’s trip to Washington, Trump praised his counterpart, who has positioned himself as a tough-on-crime strongman.
Trump said Bukele was doing a “fantastic job” at imprisoning some “very bad people… that should never have been allowed into our country”.
Source: BBC
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