El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele met with President Donald Trump at the White House Monday and said he has no plans of returning a mistakenly deported illegal immigrant from a maximum security prison in the central American country.
Taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Bukele said he did not have the power to “smuggle” Kilmar Abrego Garcia back into the U.S., implying that the Trump administration would not accept Garcia through normal channels, despite a court order requiring the administration to “facilitate” his return to the U.S.
Garcia, 29, was arrested and deported last month after residing in Maryland illegally since 2011.
“Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
