San Salvador [El Salvador], April 15 : El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on Tuesday that he won't return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, after Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters it's "up to El Salvador" whether the man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison returns to the US, CBS News reported.
Bukele and Bondi made the comments in the Oval Office alongside US President Donald Trump, as the two world leaders met.
Over the weekend, the US Justice Department said in court filings that they're willing to take "all available steps to remove any domestic obstacles" to facilitate his return, as per CBS News.
"How can I return him to the United States?" Bukele asked the press. "I smuggle him into the United States or what do I do? Of course, I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous."
Bukele referred to Abrego Garcia as a "terrorist," and said "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."
Bondi, speaking before Bukele, said it's "up to El Salvador if they want to return him." Bondi said that "first and foremost, he was illegally in our country."
"That's not up to us," Bondi said. "The Supreme Court ruled, President, that if El Salvador wants to return him... we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane."
But the Supreme Court offered no qualifier of whether El Salvador wants to return Abrego Garcia. The court ruled that a lower court order properly required the government to "facilitate" his release from El Salvador's custody.
The US Supreme Court on Thursday (local time) said the Trump administration must facilitate the release of the man, who lives in Maryland, from custody, but ordered additional proceedings before a federal district court, as per CBS News.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers insist he has no affiliation with MS-13, and has never been charged or convicted of any criminal offenses in the US or El Salvador. The Trump administration acknowledged that his deportation to the high-security prison in El Salvador known as CECOT was an "administrative error", as per CBS.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, entered the US illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019, after reviewing evidence, withheld his removal. That meant he could not be deported to El Salvador but could be deported to another country. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been "targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family's pupusa business," CNN reported.