As the Trump administration has been deporting illegal immigrants, one illegal immigrant was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. However, when he was ordered to be returned to the United States, the President of El Salvador declined.

On March 15th, 2025. Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had been here since 2011, was wrongfully detained and deported from the United States, back to El Salvador. He is currently being imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, a supermax prison that houses MS-13 and Tren de Aragua members (gangs), on charges of terrorism and being a part of MS-13.

After it was found out he was deported, according to USA Today on April 14th, 2025, the United States Supreme Court ordered his return and the Trump administration confirmed that deporting Señor Garcia was an “administrative error.” However, despite all that, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has denied all requests to return him to the US.

See, the Trump administration called it an administrative error because an immigration judge gave Garcia a withholding of removal status in 2019, however, his immigration status was wrongfully changed. So when it was changed, it hadn’t received permission by a court, thus being an error. This is true even if the administration later said it is also going to fight the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Now after he was deported and President Bukele declined to return him, it caused a bit of a ruckus in the high offices of the government as the Supreme Court ordered his return. See, according to Stephen Miller, the Homeland Security advisor to the President, he said that “He has no lawful right to be here. He was issued a final order of removal from this country, and so it’s up to El Salvador and  the government and the people of El Salvador what the fate of their own citizens is,”.

Essentially, the current situation is that of legal limbo. The Supreme Court can order his return, but they have no jurisdiction in El Salvador, so they can’t do anything about it, that being because El Salvador is a sovereign nation.

Yet there is one question remaining, that being, why does President Bukele not want to return this man to the United States? Well according to his own words, according to NPR April 14th, 2025, “How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?” and “Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”