The Trump administration said Monday the U.S. government will not return a Maryland resident it erroneously sent to a hard labor prison in El Salvador.
The refusal comes despite the Supreme Court unanimously upholding a lower-court ruling ordering it to “facilitate” the man’s return to the U.S. It’s the latest and perhaps most troubling example of the Trump administration undermining the rule of law by appearing to flatly defy judicial orders.
President Donald Trump last month invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), an 18th-century wartime law, to transfer the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and hundreds of other people to El Salvador.
In a meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that the U.S. could not order El Salvador to return Abrego García.
White House aide Stephen Miller said bringing Abrego García back would constitute “kidnapping” and an “invasion of El Salvador’s sovereignty” and also falsely stated that the Supreme Court had ruled in the Trump administration’s favor.
In the meeting with Trump, Bukele, who describes himself as “the world’s coolest dictator,” scoffed at questions regarding Abrego García’s return and the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying he couldn’t “smuggle” the man back into the U.S.
The Justice Department has acknowledged in court filings that the U.S. government erred in sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. An immigration judge previously ruled that he should not be sent to his home country because he could be persecuted and tortured by gangs that extorted his family.
Earlier this month, a federal court in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego García to the U.S. The order was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Trump administration filed an emergency petition to the Supreme Court, asking it to stay the lower court’s ruling.
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ruling Friday, saying it “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
Before he was arrested, Abrego García lived in Maryland for about 15 years and has a wife and three children, all of whom are U.S. citizens. He worked as an apprentice sheet metal worker and is a member of the SMART labor union, which has denounced his arrest.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has maintained in court filings that it interprets the Supreme Court’s order as only requiring the U.S. government to bring Abrego García back if El Salvador decides to release him.
A federal judge appointed by former President Ronald Reagan warned last week that the DOJ’s argument, if ultimately upheld by courts, would give the government a loophole through which it could “whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done.”
Benjamin Osorio, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, told ABC News that it might take a contempt order from the courts to prompt the U.S. government to return him.
The Trump administration is currently paying El Salvador $6 million to imprison Abrego García and hundreds of other immigrants, the vast majority of whom have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges.
In their comments Monday, Bukele and Trump administration officials repeatedly referred to Abrego García as a “terrorist” and a member of MS-13, a gang Trump designated as a terrorist organization through his executive order.
The Trump administration has failed to show proof, either in public or in the courts, that Abrego García has ties to the MS-13 gang. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing information from a confidential informant, previously accused him of being a member of MS-13’s arm in New York — where he has never lived.
Before Trump and Bukele’s meeting formally began, Trump told the Salvadoran president that he should build additional prisons because the “home-growns are next,” referring to U.S. citizens. During the meeting, Trump again said he would like to send U.S. citizens to El Salvador.
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