“If this trend continues,” remarked a critic, “we’re essentially under Trump’s rule.”
“It’s all an act,” commented Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an expert on immigration policy, as footage of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s discussion in the Oval Office spread on Monday.
Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, pointed out that Bukele was feigning “his inability to release” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland inhabitant who was deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) by the Trump administration in March, while President Donald Trump continued the charade of being powerless to command Abrego Garcia’s freedom.
When journalists pressed Bukele for his stance on Abrego Garcia’s situation, the Salvadoran president dismissed the query.
“Surely you aren’t implying that I should illegally transport a terrorist into the United States,” he retorted. “How am I supposed to bring him back to the United States, smuggle him in? …I lack the authority to send him back to the United States.”
Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without documentation in 2011. In 2019, he was accused by a law enforcement informant of belonging to MS-13, which he denied, and he was never legally charged. Although his plea for asylum was rejected, a judge ruled that he should not be sent back to El Salvador, citing a legitimate fear of persecution and torture there.
Having worked as a sheet metal worker and lived in Maryland with his family for several years, he was among many alleged criminals rounded up last month to be deported to El Salvador under a deal orchestrated by the Trump administration with Bukele.
In the Oval Office, Bukele echoed the Trump administration’s stance that nothing could be done to reunite Abrego Garcia with his family in Maryland.
“The U.S. is pretending it lacks the capability,” stated civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo. “And Bukele pretends the same. So, the question is, who really holds the power?”
Last week, the Supreme Court declared that the administration must play a role in “facilitating” Abrego Garcia’s release, and the Department of Justice asserted in a Sunday filing that, per that decree, it is only responsible for allowing his re-entry to the U.S. once he is released from the Salvadoran prison.
“The handling of this case signifies a severe constitutional crisis and possibly a defining moment for the immediate future,” a journalist observed. “If this precedent is set, there exists no law other than Trump’s law.”
According to J.P. Hill, both leaders in the Oval Office “blatantly stated they would ignore the Supreme Court and might even send U.S. citizens to the detention camp in El Salvador. No one will be safe if this is allowed to continue.”
While Bukele and Trump both shirked responsibility for the numerous individuals sent to CECOT, Documented highlighted the plight of Merwil Gutiérrez, a 19-year-old Venezuelan immigrant also deported to El Salvador.
Gutiérrez, who has no criminal record either in the U.S. or his homeland, was not initially targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation efforts. An ICE agent stated, “He’s not the one,” during a raid at Gutiérrez’s apartment, yet another agent insisted, “Take him anyway.”
The case of Gutiérrez, Reichlin-Melnick noted, “underscores today’s pretense by Bukele that he’s powerless to free those held in his own prison.”
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