President Donald Trump’s best advisers and Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, said on Monday that they had no base for the little Central Nation to return a man from Maryland who was expelled there last month.
Trump administration officials stressed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a notorious gang prison in Salvador, was a citizen of this country and that the United States had no say in his future. And Bukele, who was a vital partner for the Trump administration in his expulsion efforts, said: “Of course, I will not give it to us.
“The question is absurd,” said Bukele. “I don’t have the power to return it to the United States.”
If El Salvador wanted to return Abrego Garcia, the United States “would facilitate it, which means providing an airplane,” said Prosecutor General Pam Bondi.
A member of the Congressal Hispanic Caucus takes a photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a press conference to discuss the arrest and expulsion of Abrego Garcia in the cannon house office building on April 9, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Hispanic Caucus of the Congress held a press conference to discuss the expulsion of the Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, at the Security Prison Containment Center (CECOC) in Salvador, an incident of the Trump administration in the United States.
Images Alex Wong / Getty
But she added: “He was illegally in our country.”
The meeting came while El Salvador was a critical hairstyle pin for the mass expulsion operation of the American administration.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants from the United States – that Trump administration officials have accused of violent gang and crimes activity – and placed them inside the country’s maximum security gang prison in the country just outside the capital, San Salvador. He also holds Abrego Garcia, who has not been returned to the United States, despite the judicial orders to do so.
This made Bukele, which remains extremely popular in Salvador partly partly to the repression of the powerful street gangs of the country, a vital ally for the Trump administration, which offered little evidence for its assertions that the Venezuelan immigrants were in fact gang members, and he did not publish the names of those who were expelled.
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When he was asked if he had concerns about the prison where the deportees were detained, Trump told journalists early Sunday that Bukele was doing a “fantastic work”.
“He takes care of many problems that we have that we really couldn’t take care of the cost point of view,” said Trump. “And he really does, he was incredible. We have very bad people in this prison. People who should never have been allowed in our country. ”
Since the visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February, Bukele – whose government has arrested more than 84,000 people in its three -year repression against the gangs – clearly said that it was ready to help Trump administration with its deportation ambitions.
Bukele has entered into an agreement under which the United States will pay around $ 6 million for Salvador to imprison Venezuelan immigrants for a year. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to turn a flight transporting immigrants already on the way to El Salvador, Bukele wrote on social networks: “Oopsia … too late.”
Although other judges ruled against the Trump administration, this month, the Supreme Court paved the way for Trump to use the Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies, a law of the 18th century, to expel immigrants. The judges insisted that immigrants obtain a court hearing before being removed from his United States during the weekend, 10 other people who, according to the administration, are members of the MS-13 and Tren of Aragua gangs arrived in Salvador, Rubio said on Sunday.
“We also found cooperation in other countries that are ready to take some of these people, some very dangerous criminals,” Rubio said at a meeting on Thursday. Bukele, Rubio added: “was really a good friend in the United States in this regard. These are some of the worst people you will never meet. ”
Trump openly said that he would also promote El Salvador by taking American citizens who had committed violent crimes, although he added: “I would only do it according to law.” We do not know how expenred American citizens could be. Leavitt said these citizens would be “odious violent criminals who have repeatedly violated the laws of our nation”.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court called on the administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who had an order from the immigration court preventing his expulsion to his native country to fear the persecution of the gangs. Leavitt said that the administration’s work was “to facilitate the return, not to make the return”, but Trump later said on Friday that he would return Abrego Garcia to the United States if the high court judges would bring him back.
“I have great respect for the Supreme Court,” Trump told journalists traveling on Air Force One. Government lawyers indicated in a legal file on Saturday that Garcia Garcia remains in Salvador, but has not detailed what, if necessary, the passages that the administration takes to return it to the United States in its daily update required on Sunday, the government essentially declared that it had nothing to add beyond the file on Saturday.
While Bukele’s repression against gangs has popular support, the country has lived in the state of emergency that suspends fundamental rights for three years. He built the massive prison, located just outside San Salvador in the city of Tecoleca, to hold people accused of gang affiliation under his repression.
Part of its offer to receive the Venezuelans, the United States has also returned Salvadoral gang leaders. In February, her ambassador to the United States, Milena Mayorga, said on a radio program that the fact that gang leaders were confronted with justice in Salvador was “a question of honor”.
Bukele could also request a relief of the 10% rate recently imposed by Trump, using the argument that he weakens the economy that Bukele tries to strengthen.
César Ríos, director of the El Salvador Immigrant Association Agenda, said: “It is crucial that (the visit) is not limited to diplomatic gestures, but is rather reflected in concrete actions that benefit the Salvadorians abroad and at home.”
Populists who have managed to make their images through the media, Bukele and Trump are from different generations but display similar trends in the way they relate to the press, political opposition and justice systems in their respective countries.
Bukele came to power in the middle of Trump’s first mandate and had a simple relationship with the American chief. Trump was most concerned about immigration and, under Bukele, the number of salvadoran in the direction of the American border has decreased.
Bukele’s relationship with the United States developed more complicated at the start of the Biden administration, which was openly critical of some of its undemocratic actions. Trump has also shown some irritation with Bukele in the past, accusing El Salvador of having lowered his crime rate by sending people to the United States
“It is fair,” we are working with our people who cause problems and crimes, “said Trump about Bukele during a campaign rally last year. “He doesn’t work with them. He throws them in the United States and their crime rate, their murder rate, is down 72%. ”
Just before the arrival of Bukele in Washington, the State Department updated its travel notice for El Salvador at level 1, which is for countries considered to be the safest to visit for American citizens. The opinion notes that the activity of the gangs and the murders that accompany it and other violent crimes have decreased in the past three years.
