Monday’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele made it clear that the two men are political partners in Trump’s deportation efforts. But ahead of a Tuesday hearing in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, a court filing from the Trump administration also shows how U.S. officials are enlisting Bukele in their defiant litigation stance in that case.
The filing was a court-mandated status report, which U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to submit daily, given its lack of compliance with her command to facilitate the illegally deported man’s return. Last month, the Trump administration flew Abrego Garcia and others — without due process — to El Salvador’s infamous “terrorism confinement center,” even though a judge had previously ruled that Abrego Garcia can’t be removed to that specific country because he faced persecution there (to say nothing of being indefinitely detained in a dangerous prison there).
The government’s status report, which appeared on the court docket about an hour after the administration’s 5:00 p.m. daily deadline, quoted Bukele’s response to a reporter’s question: “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”
Bukele’s comments were off-base in multiple respects. For one, no one is asking him to “smuggle” anyone anywhere. The implication that Abrego Garcia is a “terrorist” is also lacking. The government has accused him of belonging to MS-13, a gang that the administration has deemed a foreign terrorist organization. But Xinis cast doubt on that claim, writing earlier this month, “The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived.”
At any rate, Bukele isn’t under a court order in this case — U.S. officials are. Specifically, they’re under an order to “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
Monday’s White House event made plain that U.S. officials aren’t taking those steps, as Trump and some of his top officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, not only failed to press Bukele on the matter but supported his stance while misstating the Supreme Court’s command to work toward Abrego Garcia’s return. (Though even Bondi’s stingy appraisal of last week’s high court order — that, according to her, its “facilitation” demand means the U.S. just has to “provide a plane” if El Salvador wants to return him — cuts against Bukele’s “smuggl[ing]” suggestion.)
Therefore, Bukele’s comments could only be relevant to include in the government’s latest court update if they addressed Xinis’ questions in this litigation.
As a reminder of what those questions are, the Obama appointee demanded that the updates contain “a declaration made by an individual with personal knowledge as to any information regarding: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States; (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.” The three reports so far — Saturday’s, Sunday’s and then Monday’s — hardly try to answer those questions. Indeed, the “updates” (such as they are) are a good microcosm of the government’s Kafkaesque approach to this litigation as a whole.
Monday’s reference to Bukele’s comments simply offers them without explaining the government’s view of their relevance. The administration’s implication could be that there’s no point in taking any facilitation steps because they won’t lead to Abrego Garcia’s return without Bukele’s support. But again, that doesn’t address the underlying question of what steps U.S. officials have taken to comply with the order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return — regardless of whether those steps are ultimately successful. Xinis will have the chance to inquire about this and anything else at a hearing Tuesday afternoon, which she set for a “follow-up” when she ordered the daily updates. Whatever she does next might set the stage for another round of Supreme Court litigation, which could be necessary due to how much wiggle room the high court majority left the administration in its order last week. Yet, because the administration’s litigation conduct over the past few days seems to defy not only Xinis’ order but also the high court’s, the position the administration advances at the hearing could preview how it plans to survive another round of high court review without trying to get Abrego Garcia back — as even the high court majority commanded. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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