By CNN – Updated 2:09 PM EDT, Mon April 14, 2025
President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, both made clear during an Oval Office meeting today that the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador won’t be returned to the United States.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling that the US must “facilitate” Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s return, White House officials have argued it’s up to El Salvador whether to do so. Asked directly by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins whether he plans to return Abrego Garcia, Bukele argued the notion of doing so would be “preposterous.”
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- “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”
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As CNN reported, the high court’s unsigned and brief decision left US District Judge Paula Xinis’ order requiring Abrego Garcia’s return in place but drew a distinction between “facilitating” his return and “effectuating” it. The lower court properly required the government to “facilitate” his return, the justices made clear. Senior White House officials have objected to the Xinis’ ruling in recent days and argued that a court cannot intervene in the foreign policy decision-making of the United States.
Trump himself has shifted his stance in recent days after initially saying he would abide by the Supreme Court’s decision.
“If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court,” Trump told reporters last week.
Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019, after reviewing evidence, withheld his removal. That meant that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”