White House officials said the deportee is an illegal alien and that El Salvador can decide how to handle him.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on April 14 that an illegal alien deported back to his home country of El Salvador will not be returned to the United States.
“You’re suggesting I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele told reporters during the Oval Office meeting. “I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 12 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Allegedly a member of MS-13, he has resided in El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center for more than a month.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the federal government should help facilitate his return, but the order acknowledged that the government could not be forced to, given that the individual was in the custody of a foreign nation.
White House chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters earlier in the day that Abrego Garcia was deported because he entered the country illegally.
This is a developing story and will be updated
