What to know about Abrego Garcia’s deportation case as White House and Bukele make clear he won’t be returned to US

(CNN) — A Maryland man’s efforts to return to the US after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month hit a major new roadblock on Monday when the country’s president vowed to keep the father of three locked in a notorious mega-prison.

The comments from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele mark a key turning point in the legal saga over Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who has become a political pawn in the Trump administration’s quest to dramatically expand the power of the presidency over immigration matters as President Donald Trump pursues a deportation campaign.

During a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, Bukele told reporters that while he has the power to release Abrego Garcia, his administration isn’t “very fond of releasing terrorists” being detained in his country.

US officials have alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. His attorneys, however, dispute the claim and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward it.

Here’s what to know about the case.

Who is Abrego Garcia?

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, entered the US illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019, after reviewing evidence, withheld his removal. That meant he could not be deported to El Salvador but could be deported to another country. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”

US officials arrested Abrego Garcia on March 12 and placed him on one of three planes bound for El Salvador days later. The administration alleges that he was arrested “in the company of other ranking gang members” and that he was confirmed to be a member of MS-13 by a “reliable source.”

Abrego Garcia was later identified by his wife in a photo of detainees entering intake at El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison known as CECOT.

How have federal courts responded?

Late last month, Abrego Garcia and his family sued various Trump administration officials to secure his return to the US. District Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said his removal to El Salvador was “an illegal act” and ordered the government to facilitate his return to the US by 11:59 p.m. on March 31.

After appeals, the Supreme Court put Xinis’ deadline on hold and later backed her directive without setting a new deadline for when Abrego Garcia should be returned, saying instead that the district court judge’s edict was unclear and needed clarification.

The judge’s order, the high court said, “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

Importantly, the Supreme Court noted that the clarification needed to be made with “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

No justices publicly dissented from the court’s order, but its three liberal members wrote separately to criticize the administration’s actions in the case.

Removing ‘domestic obstacles’

After the case landed back before Xinis, the judge issued a new order for the administration to “take all available steps to facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. She directed it to provide her with a sworn statement from an individual “with personal knowledge” of the steps the government has taken or is planning to take to secure his return.

The administration failed to submit the declaration, leading the judge to require the government to provide daily the same information each day so she can keep close tabs on how the administration is following her order.

Sunday night, Justice Department attorneys insisted that the government is not required to work with officials in El Salvador to secure Abrego Garcia’s return, arguing that they understand “facilitate” to mean working to “remove any domestic obstacles” that may stand in the way of his return.

“The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” the DOJ attorneys wrote in the seven-page filing.

And as part of that day’s update to Xinis, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in a sworn statement that Abrego Garcia “is no longer eligible for withholding of removal” because of the administration’s claim that he’s a member of the MS-13 gang.

The assertion by Evan Katz, an official with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, means that if Abrego Garcia were brought back to the US, the government would work quickly to deport him.

Another hearing in the case is set for Tuesday afternoon.

Oval Office rejection

Trump has shifted his stance on Abrego Garcia in recent days after initially saying he would abide by the Supreme Court’s decision.

“If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back, I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court,” Trump told reporters last week.

But pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on those previous comments, the president on Monday did not answer the question, instead turning to members of his administration – including Attorney General Pam Bondi, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — to underscore the administration’s argument that the US doesn’t have the power to return Abrego Garcia.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us. The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him … we would facilitate it: meaning, provide a plane,” Bondi said.

Minutes later, Bukele weighed in.

“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” he said, prompting a reporter to ask whether he would release Abrego Garcia into El Salvador.

“You want us to us to go back to releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world?” Bukele said. “That’s not going to happen.”

CNN’s John Fritze and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

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