U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Nayib Bukele at the White House on Monday, encouraging the El Salvadorean president to build more prisons to house criminals deported from the U.S., as his cabinet members offered the most full-throated denunciation of a Maryland resident currently imprisoned in the Central American country.
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, in addition to a Maryland resident from El Salvador it has acknowledged in court filings it deported by mistake.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center on March 15 despite an order protecting him from deportation, has drawn particular attention.
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The Justice Department in a Supreme Court filing on April 7 stated that while Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador through “administrative error,” his actual removal from the United States “was not error.” The error, department lawyers wrote, was in removing him specifically to El Salvador despite the deportation protection order. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Abrego Garcia was wrongfully placed on a flight to El Salvador despite a 2019 judgment granting him protection from deportation, where it was feared he would face persecution.
The U.S. 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.
However, in a court filing on Sunday, the administration said it was not obligated to help Abrego Garcia — who is married to a U.S. citizen — get out of prison in El Salvador.
WATCH | Breaking down the centuries-old law U.S. is using to deport many:
‘The question is preposterous’
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in the Oval Office with the two presidents, each said that Garcia, 29, was a member of MS-13, the gang that originated in California but grew in strength and numbers in El Salvador.
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The cabinet officials, who did not address why no federal criminal or extradition proceedings were ever brought against Garcia, essentially said the decision is now El Salvador’s to make.
Bukele, in response to a reporter, gave no indication that Garcia’s release would happen.
“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”
Trump, who came into office in January promising to reform U.S. immigration policy, has found a kindred spirit for that effort in Bukele. The migrants El Salvador accepts from the U.S. are housed in a high-security prison critics say engages in human rights abuses.
But when asked how many “illegal criminals” he planned on deporting to El Salvador by a reporter, Trump said “as many as possible.”
“I just asked [Bukele], you know, it’s this massive complex that he built, a jail complex. I said, ‘Can you build some more of them, please?'” Trump remarked.
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Pressed on Friday whether he had concerns about alleged human rights abuses at the mega-prison, Trump said no.
In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump called them “great facilities” and said he’d “like to go a step further,” musing about deporting American citizens who commit violent crimes.
“I don’t know what the laws are, we always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways … I’d like to include them in the group of people to get out of the country.”
As prisoners stand looking out from a cell, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to camera during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)
The U.S. on Saturday deported 10 more people it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, said Rubio, who called the alliance between Trump and Bukele “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
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Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the U.S. government assertion that they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.
Democrats and human rights groups have previously slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for a video late last month in which she appears before a crowded group of tattooed men behind bars in the El Salvador prison.
In the first days of the administration, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration considers any unauthorized person in the U.S. a “criminal.” Entering the country between border points or staying in the U.S. without legal status has traditionally been considered a civil offence.
Bukele has denied any deals with gangs
Bukele’s strongman tendencies first gained widespread attention internationally when he sent armed security forces and an ultimatum to the El Salvadorean legislature in early 2020 to push through his security legislation. After positive 2021 legislative election results, he replaced judges of the constitutional court with compliant ones.
He then manoeuvred to run for re-election, even though El Salvador’s constitution banned presidents from serving consecutive five-year terms.
El Salvador had one of the worst homicide rates in the world until the past few years, when a significant drop occurred.
Bukele and his supporters hail his tough-on-crime approach — some estimates have at least five per cent of the country’s male population between 14 and 29 detained — but the U.S. Treasury Department in Joe Biden’s administration alleged that Bukele’s government secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the gangs to quell deadly violence.
The Biden administration alleged that Bukele’s government bought the gangs’ support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders, including prostitutes and cellphones. Bukele has vehemently denied the accusations.
As well, the U.S. State Department in Biden’s term expressed concern about what it called “credible reports” of human rights abuses such as arbitrary arrest, a lack of due process, torture at the hands of security forces and life-threatening prison conditions.
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