"I'm Not Going To Do It": El Salvador Refuses To Return Alleged MS-13 "Terrorist" To US
Monday, Apr 14, 2025 - 12:39 PM
Update (1235ET): El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele will not return an El Salvadorian citizen mistakenly deported from the United States, suggesting that to return the man would be to smuggle a terrorist into the United States.
"Well, I'm supposed to have suggested that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right?" Bukele said when pressed on returning the man to the US. "Return him to the United States. I smuggle him into the United States. I'm not going to do it."
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration, after which the US Supreme Court ruled that the administration must facilitate his return.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also chimed in, saying: "So it's very arrogant, even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens. As a starting point, as two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13," adding "When President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law... for any form of immigration relief in the United States."
"So 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 and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation," Miller added. "This issue was then by a district court judge completely inverted, and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and flying back here. That issue was raised to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed."