Trump, El Salvador president indicate no intention of returning mistakenly deported man

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• William Brangham:

  A remarkable scene inside the Oval Office today, President Trump and key members of his administration meeting with the president of El Salvador, both governments rejecting the president's request for responsibility for the fate of a Maryland man the administration admits was wrongly deported.

  The Supreme Court decided last week the U.S. government must facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Garcia's return is at El Salvador's discretion.

• Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General:

  He was illegally in our country. He had been illegally in our country. Right now, it was a paperwork — it was additional paperwork that needed to be done. That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us.

  The Supreme Court rule, President, that if El Salvador wants to return him, this is international matters, foreign affairs. If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.

• William Brangham:

  But President Bukele also claimed his hands were tied.

  Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador: How can I return him to the United States? It's like I smuggle him into the United States, or whatever it is? Of course, I'm not going to do it. It's like, I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

• William Brangham:

  For more, I am joined by our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, who has been covering the latest.

  Hi.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Hi.

• William Brangham:

  Help us understand the evolving context, this relationship between these two presidents we saw sitting next to each other today.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So, first, some background on President Bukele. He has described himself as — quote — "the world's coolest dictator."

  And President Bukele essentially believes that when someone is president, they become the law. He's not known in his country for respecting the rights of people inside the criminal justice system. And he has been politically rewarded back home for creating these mega-prisons that now the United States is sending migrants to, because his voters believe that they have reduced crime.

  And so it is believed that President Bukele, unlike other Latin American presidents, has demonstrated essentially that he's willing to imprison a number of people that President Trump sends to him, including potentially U.S. citizens, which President Trump was asked about the possibility of today.

  DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: If they're criminals and if they hit people with baseball bats over their head that happen to be 90 years old, and if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yes, yes, that includes them. What, do you think there's special category of person?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  They're as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. And I'm all for it. ' President Trump, as they were entering the Oval Office, had said to El Salvadoran President Bukele that — quote — "homegrowns are next," referring to American citizens.

  And he was asking Bukele to build five more mega-prisons. Also, just yesterday, we should note that 10 more migrants who the administration alleges are members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua were deported to El Salvador.

• William Brangham:

  This comes also as we saw another late-night filing from the Trump administration arguing that they have no responsibility to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from that El Salvador prison.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  That's right.

  Yesterday, the administration said in a court filing that Garcia is — quote — "alive and secure" in the CECOT mega-prison. But the federal judge, Paula Xinis, had ordered daily updates about what they were doing to bring back Abrego Garcia.

  And the administration said in that filing — quote — "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."

  Now, also today, Stephen Miller, a top adviser to President Trump, falsely claimed that the Supreme Court said that the lower district's ruling was unlawful. Also, he claimed that the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the White House in this issue. And that's not true.

  The Supreme Court specifically said that the administration must facilitate Garcia's — quote — "release from custody" in El Salvador and that the Trump administration needed to be prepared to share details about what they were doing to facilitate that release.

  Now, SCOTUS has also ruled that due process is necessary for anyone that the administration is deporting in the manner that they had deported Abrego Garcia. And Trump officials repeatedly claimed today that Garcia himself is a member of MS-13, but the appeals court has said that the administration has provided no evidence that he is a member of the MS-13 gang.

  So, when you break it down, William, a number of things that were said today by Trump officials, including A.G. Pam Bondi, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is the opposite of what the administration is saying in court. They have repeatedly admitted in court that they made an administrative error.

• William Brangham:

  So where does it leave it with the judge who said to the administration, you have got to make this happen?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  I spoke to Ira Kurzban. He's a longtime immigration lawyer. And he said that ultimately the federal judge could ask to see that $6 million contract to figure out if the administration is not telling the truth.

  And he also said, though, that the continued defiance of the court's orders in the Abrego Garcia case, as well as efforts to target other legal immigrants, ultimately is all about self-deportation.

• IRA KURZBAN, Immigration Attorney:

  This is just all a political construct by Trump to scare the American people. And this is all in many respects theater. It's all designed — and even his statement, I'm going to take Americans and send them there, it's all designed to get people so afraid that they leave the United States. That's what this is really all about.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Ultimately, Abrego Garcia case could have big implications for the other Venezuelans and migrants that were deported to El Salvador.

• William Brangham:

  In another front on the Trump anti-immigration campaign, there was this hearing about the Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk who was detained for her alleged support of Hamas. What is the latest on that?

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  So what we found out was that The Washington Post exclusively reported that the State Department has no evidence that the Tufts University student Ozturk engaged in antisemitic activities, nor did she make public statements supporting terrorist organizations.

  And in a hearing today, a federal judge said that he may ultimately rule that she needs to be released from Louisiana detention and he raised the possibility that this could lead to a constitutional crisis.

• William Brangham:

  Laura Barron-Lopez, as always, thank you so much.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Thank you.

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