The Trump administration has no interest in seeing a man returned to the United States who was illegally sent to El Salvador. The president made that very clear on Saturday... in a way that he probably thought was pretty clever.
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Donald Trump does not do subtlety, and when he tries, it usually doesn’t go all that well. Like on Saturday night, when he tried to explain to the nation why he, the most powerful man and most gifted dealmaker on Earth, is unable to ask the president of El Salvador to return to his family a man who was illegally deported from the United States.
There is quite a bit to unpack here, so bear with us because this is really important.
In a social media post, Trump said he is looking forward to meeting with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador on Monday in what would ordinarily be a relatively low-stakes summit.
However, the visit has taken on great significance because of the role the central American country plays in the deportation and internment of immigrants from the US who were sent there without due process and are being held for a year in a gulag-type facility in exchange for $6 million that the United States paid Bukele’s government.
Since the more than 200 alleged gang members were flown to El Salvador in mid-March in defiance of a court order, this issue has become a real headache for the Trump administration, because, contrary to its repeated assertions that all of these individuals were vicious and violent criminals, that is apparently not so.
There is plenty of evidence that a number of the deportees are not affiliated with gangs and found themselves on these flights simply because of their tattoos or other flimsy evidence. Only a minority of them appear to have criminal records.
Of course, we don’t know for sure because the Trump administration is not providing any information about them that would explain what makes them so dangerous.
The case of one of these prisoners is especially noteworthy.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland, was on one of these flights even though he enjoyed a special protected status that made his deportation to El Salvador, a country from which he said he fled a decade ago to escape gang violence, illegal.
The Trump administration has admitted as much.
As a result, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a ruling this week that ordered the United States to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
However, as we explained here, the Trump administration has zero interest in seeing him (or any of the others who should not be imprisoned in El Salvador) come back to the US, because that would expose the lies that officials — including the president himself, Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt — have been telling about these immigrants.
And it would show Americans how cruel and callous the administration is.
So, what to do if the Supreme Court says you should try to bring back Abrego Garcia but you don’t want to?
On Friday, Trump said that he would abide by the ruling.
“If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back, I would do that,” he told reporters. “I respect the Supreme Court.”
Since then, however, somebody appears to have explained to the president why it would be really bad for Abrego Garcia to return and become a symbol for his administration’s inhumane and chaotic deportation policy that is quite clearly conducted under false premises.
Which is why Trump ham-handedly explained on Saturday evening that there is simply no way that he could effectuate Abrego Garcia’s release.
“President Bukele has graciously accepted into his Nation’s custody some of the most violent alien enemies of the World and, in particular, the United States,” he stated. “These barbarians are now in the sole custody of El Salvador, a proud and sovereign Nation, and their future is up to President B and his Government.”
This mirrors language from a court filing in the case, in which the administration attested that Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in Bukele’s gulag. That filing also states that he is “detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” which mirrors Trump’s argument but does so in a way that is slightly less clumsy.
Let’s translate all of that into plain English: “We paid President Bukele a lot of money to house a couple hundred people who may or may not be gang members, and I don’t feel like asking him to return just one of them even though the Supreme Court said I should.”
It simply defies belief that Trump could not pick up the phone and have Abrego Garcia returned today.
Of course he could.
And not because he is supposedly such a great dealmaker, but rather because the US paid El Salvador to house some immigrants for a year in what is a good deal for Bukele, and if he wants to continue this business relationship, then he better damn well do what Trump wants.
This is exactly the kind of transactional scenario in which a bully like the US president excels.
Which is why we know one thing for sure (and his clumsy social media post is just the last bit of evidence to prove it): By not returning Abrego Garcia, Bukele is doing exactly what Trump wants.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else. If you’d like to read more, subscribe to our newsletters.
