El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele said on Monday he had no plans to return a man mistakenly deported from the United States as he met US president Donald Trump at the White House.
In an Oval Office meeting, Mr Trump praised Mr Bukele for opening his country’s prison system to house alleged gang members and detainees Mr Trump wants to deport, and said he would send as many people living in the US illegally to El Salvador as possible.
The US would help El Salvador build new prisons, Mr Trump added.
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, including a Maryland resident it has acknowledged deporting by mistake.
Mr Bukele said he did not have the power to return Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Mr Bukele said, echoing the Trump administration’s claim that Mr Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.
The migrants El Salvador accepts from the US are housed in a high-security prison critics say engages in human rights abuses.
Mr Trump met Mr Bukele at the White House to discuss further co-operation on security and migration, El Salvador’s embrace of bitcoin, and tariffs.
Rights groups say Mr Bukele has jailed thousands of people without due process in a sweeping crackdown on gangs, claims Mr Bukele rejects.
Mr Bukele told Mr Trump he is accused of imprisoning “thousands” of people. “I like to say that we actually liberated millions,” he said.
The US on Saturday deported 10 more people it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, said secretary of state Marco Rubio, who called the alliance between Mr Trump and Mr Bukele “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.
Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the US government assertion that they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to gangs including Tren de Aragua and MS-13, which it labels terrorist organisations.
Last month, after a judge said flights carrying migrants processed under the Alien Enemies Act should return to the US, Mr Bukele wrote “Oopsie ... Too late” on social media alongside footage showing men being hustled off a plane in the dark of night.
The case of Mr Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Centre on March 15th despite an order protecting him from deportation, has drawn particular attention.
The US supreme court upheld an order from judge Paula Xinis directing the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” his return but said the term “effectuate” was unclear and might exceed her authority.
Mr Trump told reporters on Friday that his administration would bring the man back if the high court directed it to.
However, in a court filing on Sunday, the administration said it was not obliged to help Mr Abrego Garcia get out of prison in El Salvador.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, speaking ahead of Mr Bukele’s visit, insisted that Mr Abrego Garcia’s deportation was legal, despite the court order. “His status was he’s an illegal alien who’s been ordered deported, which means he can be indefinitely detained and removed to any other country in the world.”
An immigration judge had previously granted Mr Abrego Garcia protection from being deported to El Salvador, finding that he could face gang violence there, and he held a permit to work in the United States. – Reuters
