El Salvador’s President Refused Trump Admin Request Inquiring About Releasing Abrego Garcia: New York Times Reports
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
El Salvador reportedly said no to a diplomatic note from the White House inquiring about releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant the administration admitted was deported to a megaprison in error.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration sent a “diplomatic note” regarding Garcia, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. Two of those sources claim that El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said no to releasing Garcia.
The Times reported that it remained unclear whether the ask by the White House was a “genuine bid” to get Garcia released.
According to The Times:
It remained unclear whether the diplomatic effort was a genuine bid by the White House to address the plight of the immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged was improperly expelled to El Salvador last month in violation of a court order expressly prohibiting him from being sent there.
Some legal experts suggested that the sequence of events could have been an attempt at window dressing by officials seeking to give the appearance of being in compliance with the recent Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release.
The Supreme Court previously ruled that the administration needs to “facilitate” Garcia’s return. The illegal migrant was living in Maryland for more than a decade, and the administration continues to insist he is a member of the MS-13 gang. Garcia has no past gang-related convictions, and his legal team has denied the accusations. The administration is facing a court-ordered deadline next week to provide an update on steps taken to return Garcia.
Trump has remained defiant on the issue, claiming the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t actually mean he needs to return Garcia. In a Tuesday interview, he referenced a Photoshopped picture of a hand tattoo reading “MS-13” on Garcia. The image is fake, but the president continued to say Garcia is a criminal and said the decision is not up to him.
“I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him where he is,” the president said.
“In the Oval Office, President Bukele made it very clear he will not be smuggling Abrego Garcia, who is a designated foreign terrorist, MS-13 gang member and El Salvadoran national, back into the United States,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said about the matter in a statement.
