Neither Trump nor Bukele willing to return Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego to the U.S.

During a meeting in the Oval Office with the US president Donald Trump, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, told reporters on Monday that his government will not return Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego back to the countryUS, even though the administration's Justice Department acknowledged that he had been deported by mistaketo his country, and even though the Supreme Court recently formally asked to "facilitate" his return as soon as possible.

"How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous", Bukele commented to reporters while seated next to the Republican leader, after being asked if he would return Abrego to the United States. After issuing this response, the reporters asked if he would then be released in his own country, to which the Salvadoran president responded, "We are not very fond of releasing terrorists". At such words, Trump returned to Bukeleand commented on the reporters asking these questions, "They'd love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people."

Marco Rubio also defended Bukele's position.

At the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he could not understand why there was so much "confusion" about the Supreme Court's order to facilitate Abrego's return, arguing that “the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not by a court, and no court in the United States has a right to conduct a foreign policy of the United States." Similarly, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi commented on this case that, "If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane. That’s up for El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us."

Shortly before the meeting between the two presidents, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller commented during an interview with Fox News not only that Abrego had been "sent to the right place," but also that hehad not been "mistakenly sent to El Salvador," publicly rejecting the Justice Department's claims in several court documents characterizing Abrego's shipment to the Salvadoran maximum-security CECOT prison as "an administrative error."