El Salvador’s Bukele Says He Doesn’t Have Power to Return Mistakenly Deported Man
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s comments came during an Oval Office meeting with President Trump.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is one of the biggest right-wing icons in the world. WSJ explains how he became an influential figure in the MAGA movement with close ties to many of President Trump’s allies. Photo: kevin lamarque/Reuters
WASHINGTON—El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he doesn’t have the authority to bring back to the U.S. a migrant deported in error to a Salvadoran maximum-security prison, as top Trump administration officials struck a defiant tone in response to a court ruling requiring the U.S. to facilitate the man’s return.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a man who lived with his family in Maryland and was deported in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”—has become a flashpoint in President Trump’s aggressive approach to mass deportation.
“Of course, I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said during a Monday meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office, in response to a question about whether he would return Abrego Garcia. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” Bukele called the question preposterous.
Bukele’s sprawling mega-prison is a cornerstone of Trump’s deportation strategy. Sitting in the Oval Office, wearing a black T-shirt and no tie, Bukele said he was “very eager to help” the U.S. by continuing to take alleged gang members and other deportees into his prison system.
“You have 350 million people to liberate,” he told Trump. “But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.” The 43-year-old Salvadoran president, who mocks his critics by calling himself the world’s “coolest dictator,” is Trump’s top ally in Latin America.
In the same Oval Office meeting, Trump administration officials objected to a federal judge’s ruling that the U.S. should facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia.
“I can tell you this, Mr. President, the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not a court,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy, said that if Abrego Garcia were returned, the Trump administration would deport him again. “No version of this, legally, ends up with him ever living here,” he said, arguing the courts can’t compel the White House’s foreign policy. “It’s very arrogant, even, for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens,” Miller added.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said during the meeting that it was up to El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia: “That’s not up to us.”
Abrego Garcia was one of the more than 200 alleged gang members flown to El Salvador for indefinite detention at the country’s Centro de Contenimiento del Terrorismo, or Cecot, a sprawling prison built to hold 40,000 people that has become a symbol of Bukele’s crackdown against gangs.
Bukele struck a deal with the Trump administration to detain those migrants for $6 million a year. Asked on Monday how many more deportees he intended to send to El Salvador, Trump said “as many as possible.”
“It has been wonderful for us to be able to have somewhere to send the worst of the worst,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Bukele during the Oval Office meeting
Trump also said he would be open to deporting U.S. citizens to the prison “if they’re criminals,” a proposal first raised by Bukele with Rubio during the secretary of state’s visit to El Salvador in February, and which legal experts say would be unconstitutional.
Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. from El Salvador without authorization while a teenager. An immigration judge in 2019 issued an order forbidding his deportation to El Salvador after finding he faced threats from a local gang.
Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him in March. They have alleged he is a member of MS-13, the violent gang that the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Abrego Garcia, who has never been charged with a crime, denies belonging to MS-13. A federal appeals court said the allegation of gang membership was unsupported.
Bukele has become a global right-wing icon because of his aggressive crackdown on El Salvador’s gangs, which has turned what was once the murder capital of the world into a country safer than Canada. He has done so by ruling under emergency powers since 2022, which suspend crucial civil liberties, including due process.
Trump repeatedly criticized Bukele on the campaign trail last year, accusing him of “dumping criminals” into the U.S. “He’s trying to convince everybody what a wonderful job he does in running the country,” Trump said during his speech at the Republican National Convention in July. “Well, he doesn’t do a wonderful job.”
He has adopted a different tone since taking office, praising Bukele and referring to him as “President B.”
Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and Tarini Parti at tarini.parti@wsj.com
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