by Temitope Oladeji
15/4/2025
During a high-profile meeting at the White House on Monday, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele made it clear he has no intention of returning a Salvadoran national mistakenly deported from the United States.
Speaking alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, President Bukele dismissed the possibility of repatriating Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident, the Trump administration admitted was wrongly deported under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said, reiterating U.S. claims that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the MS-13 gang.
President Trump, who assumed office with a promise to overhaul immigration policy, praised Bukele’s administration for accepting deportees, including alleged gang members, and for making El Salvador’s prison system available to house them.
President Trump further vowed to increase deportations, saying he planned to send as many undocumented immigrants to El Salvador as possible.
He also pledged the United States’ support in building new prisons in the Central American country to accommodate the influx.
Under the President Trump administration, hundreds of people, many of them Venezuelans, have been deported to El Salvador using the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act.
Critics have raised alarm over the policy, especially after the wrongful deportation of individuals like Abrego Garcia.
Human rights organizations have also condemned the conditions in El Salvador’s high-security prisons, where many deportees are held, citing widespread abuses and the lack of due process.
President Bukele’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown has led to the detention of tens of thousands, a move rights groups claim has violated fundamental legal protections. Bukele, however, defended his strategy.
“I’m accused of imprisoning thousands,” he told Trump. “I like to say that we liberated millions.”
President Trump responded enthusiastically to the remark, asking, “Do you think I can use that?” He then took the opportunity to criticize his Democratic rivals for what he described as their failure to control the southern border.
The two leaders also discussed broader cooperation on security and migration, El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, and ongoing trade issues.
The meeting underscored the growing alliance between Trump and Bukele, both of whom have embraced hardline stances on crime and immigration.