Nayib Bukele will not return deported MS-13 gang member to US

President Donald Trump was joined in the Oval Office by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on Monday, during which the Central American leader said, when asked about the deported Maryland alleged MS-13 gang member who is currently at the center of a court battle, that he would not "smuggle a terrorist into the United States."

After initially skipping CNN’s question, Trump said he would take a question from the "very low rated" reporter, who asked about the Maryland MS-13 gang member, who was deported to El Salvador in March and a District Court has said that the Trump administration needs to "facilitate" his return "as soon as possible."

Trump let Attorney General Pam Bondi reply, who said that "first and foremost, he was illegally in our country," and that two courts, "an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that he was a member of MS-13." She added, "that’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him, that’s not up to us. The Supreme Court ruled, president, that if El Salvador wants to return him—this is international matters, foreign affairs—if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane."

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said that it was "very arrogant, even for American media, to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens." Miller said that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had a valid deportation order and was a member of a foreign terrorist organization, and was "not even allowed to be present in the United States" because of this. 

"A district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here," Miller said. "That issue was raised to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components reversed, nine-zero, unanimously, stating clearly that neither secretary of state nor the president could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador who, again, is a member of MS-13."

Bukele, who was asked if he planned to return the man, said that the reporter was suggesting he "smuggle a terrorist into the United States."

"How can I smuggle, how can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? What do I do? Of course, I’m not going to do it," he said. "The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States."

A reporter said Bukele could release the man into El Salvador, to which he replied, "yeah, but I’m not releasing—I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country of the Western Hemisphere and you want us to go back to releasing the criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later added, "This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country. That’s where you deport people back to, their country of origin, except for Venezuela that was refusing to take people back or places like that." He said that "no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States."