El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele made it crystal clear: he won’t be returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, back to the United States.
Sitting beside Donald Trump during a meeting Monday, Bukele pushed back hard against the idea that his government should help undo the deportation, calling the suggestion completely unrealistic.
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“How can I return him to the United States? Am I going to smuggle him? Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said, bluntly dismissing the idea. “The question is preposterous.”
Garcia, a Maryland resident, was deported by U.S. immigration officials under circumstances that are now being widely questioned.
But during Monday’s discussion, Trump administration officials admitted there’s no legal way to force El Salvador’s hand on the matter. That leaves Garcia in a legal and diplomatic limbo, and sparks a fresh debate over how immigration enforcement is handled when things go wrong.
For now, Garcia remains in El Salvador, and it’s unclear whether or how he’ll be able to make his way back to the United States.
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