The president of El Salvador had a stark response when questioned about the possibility of sending back a father who was wrongly deported from the US to a large prison known as the ‘world’s worst prison’.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident, found himself at the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador recently, following widespread deportations during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Though Garcia initially entered the US illegally around 2011, a judge ruled in 2019 that he should not be deported due to threats from a gang in his homeland.
After Garcia’s deportation came to light, the Supreme Court ordered Trump’s administration to ‘facilitate’ his return. Nonetheless, during a meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, it was understood that the decision to send Garcia back would rest with Bukele’s government.
At this meeting in the Oval Office, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Bukele about his intentions regarding Garcia’s return to the US.
Bukele was dismissive of the notion of Garcia’s return.
He stated: “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.
“We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country in the western hemisphere. And you want us to go back into the releasing criminals, so we can go back to the murder capital of the world, and that’s not going to happen.”
Bukele’s remarks followed Trump’s agreement last week to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling to return Garcia, stating: “If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back, I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court.”
Trump did not discuss Garcia’s return during his meeting with Bukele, but Attorney General Pam Bondi noted that it was a decision for El Salvador to make.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,” Bondi mentioned. “The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him … we would facilitate it: meaning, provide a plane.”
A court document related to Garcia’s deportation provided insight into how he ended up in the prison, citing an ‘administrative error’.
The document, released on March 31, stated: “On March 15, although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.”
Acting ICE field office director, Robert Cerna, explained that Garcia was ‘not on the initial manifest of the Title 8 flight to be removed to El Salvador’, but was instead an ‘alternate’.
He also noted that the ‘manifest did not indicate that Abrego-Garcia should not be removed’, describing it as an ‘oversight’.