El Salvador President Naive Buquere told reporters during a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday that the Justice Department would not return the man who told him he was accidentally deported to his country.
“How can I get him back to the US? Just like if I smuggled him into the US?” Bukel said when he sat beside Trump in his oval office and was asked if he would return Kilmer Abrego Garcia. “Of course I’m not going to do that. The question is ridiculous.”
When asked if he would be released in his country, he said, “We don’t really like releasing terrorists.”
Trump then turned to Bukere and said of the gathered reporters:
Trump also said he hopes to incorporate “as many criminals as possible” into Bukere.
According to court filings, Garcia has never been criminally charged in the United States or El Salvador.
Justice Department officials have admitted that Garcia should not be sent to El Salvador for the 2019 order he was ordered not to send him there, and the Supreme Court has called his removal illegal and directed the administration to “promote” his return while respecting the president’s authority.
Kilmer Armando Abrego Garcia, a father of Beltsville, Maryland, admits that his father was illegally deported to El Salvador. News4 delves deep into what happened and what could be next.
At the Oval Office Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he did not understand the “confusion” about the order, arguing that “US foreign policy is carried out by the US President, not by the courts, and that US courts have no right to implement US foreign policy.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “If they want to return him, we promote it. That means offering a plane. If they want to return him, it’s for El Salvador. That’s not up to us.”
The exchange came shortly after Top White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News Monday morning that Garcia was “sent to the right place.”
“He wasn’t mistakenly sent to El Salvador,” Miller said. Repeated Justice Department claims have returned to many court declarations that Garcia was sent to the infamous Salvadra prison for “administrative errors” last month.
“This was the right person sent to the right place,” Miller said despite the Supreme Court’s criticism of the removal in last week’s ruling.
“The United States recognizes that Abrego Garcia is subject to a withholding order banning removal in El Salvador and therefore removal in El Salvador is illegal,” the High Court said the Justice Department has recognized that the removal was the result of “administrative errors.”
Miller said if Buquere returns Garcia, “He will be deported to El Salvador for the second time.”
The Supreme Court says the Trump administration must find a way to bring Kilmer Abrego Garcia home to the US after he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador. Reported by Jackie Bensen of News4.
The Trump administration has signed a $6 million contract with El Salvador, and has said it is a member of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and a member of street gang MS-13. The administration has labelled both gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
An immigration judge in 2019 discovered that Garcia was affiliated with MS-13.
A federal judge who is primarily a sideline in the suit seeking Garcia’s return to the United States pointed out that he has no criminal history in the United States or El Salvador, saying that the accusations of gang membership came from “a singular, unfounded allegations.”
“The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia was merely his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, consisting of vague, silent allegations from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to the ‘western’ creek of MS-13 in New York.
In an interview with Fox, Miller said Garcia’s membership in MS-13 means that the order he was ordered not to be returned to El Salvador is null and is in a position the government has not taken in court.
In a ruling supported by the Supreme Court, Sinis directed the administration to “promote” Garcia’s return. Miller said that if El Salvador decides to send him back, it means that the US will allow him to return.
He also said the government’s approval was a mistake. It came from “DOJ lawyers who have since been released from duties, destroyers and Democrats,” but the lawyers he mentioned were not the only ones to make its representative. US Attorney General D. John Sawer was called “administrative errors” in his filings to the Supreme Court last week.
Following the Supreme Court decision, Sinis issued last week an order that the government “takes all available measures to promote Abrego Garcia’s return as soon as possible,” and that the High Court order complies with the order that “shares the measures it has taken and the outlook for further measures.”
The government initially did not provide her with that information, but in an application on Saturday, Garcia said, “It is currently being held at the Terrorism Confinement Centre in El Salvador. He is alive and safe in the facility.”
The case hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
Source link
