April 16 (UPI) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the United States will not return a wrongly deported Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as the state’s senior senator traveled to El Salvador to meet with officials about him.
“He is not coming back to our country,” Bondi told reporters Wednesday.
President Donald Trump met this week with Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, 43, who likewise indicated he will not return Abrego Garcia, claiming he did not have the power to do so.
“How can I return him to the United States?” Bukele said Monday in the Oval Office. “Like if I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, is currently being held in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center after he was abducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He is married to an American citizen and migrated at age 16 to work and was granted residency in 2019.
“President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” added Bondi, claiming Abrego Garcia is an “illegal alien” who has been “living illegally” in the United States.
The U.S. Justice Department, meanwhile, has failed to provide evidence on the claim that Abrego Garcia, who has not been charged with a crime and has held protected immigrant status since 2019, is a member of the MS-13 gang in a claim his attorneys and family say is false.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the father of three’s return home to Maryland but stopped short of ordering it.
Bondi said Wednesday if Bukele “wanted” to send back Abrego Garcia, the United States “would give him a plane ride back.”
“There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none,” she added.
“He’s from El Salvador. He’s in El Salvador, and that’s where the president plans on keeping him.”
On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sent a letter to Salvadoran Ambassador Milena Mayorga requesting a meeting with Bukele to discuss the issue, adding he would travel this week to Mexico’s neighbor in order to seek answers and meet with government officials in El Salvador.
Van Hollen said he believed Bukele would reconsider “when he understands the full story” of Abrego Garcia’s “illegal detention.”
On Wednesday morning, Van Hollen boarded a plane to El Salvador and landed before noon. He appeared to arrive alone after other Democratic lawmakers expressed a willingness to join.
A spokesperson confirmed Van Hollen has a meeting scheduled with a “high-level” government official at the U.S. embassy in San Salvador.
“I also hope to meet with Salvadoran officials and with Kilmar himself,” Van Hollen posted on Bluesky shortly after he landed. “He was illegally abducted and needs to come home,” he added about Abrego Garcia.
Maryland’s Democratic senator said in his airport video how “this is about due process” and “rule of law.”
“What bullies do is they begin by picking on the most vulnerable,” he said. “But if we get rid of the rule of law and due process in the United States, it’s a short road from there to tyranny.”