Trump: Man Wrongfully Deported To El Salvador Won't Return To U.S.

Speaker 1 Support for this podcast and the following message comes from Humana. Your employees are your business's heartbeat.

Speaker 1 Humana offers dental, vision, life, and disability coverage with award-winning service and modern benefits. Learn more at humana.com/slash employer.

Speaker 2 Hi, this is Monica in Austin, Texas. I'm here with my coworkers at the Texas State Capitol to teach middle school and high school girls about policymaking and advocacy.

Speaker 2 This podcast was recorded at 1:04 p.m.

Speaker 3 Eastern Eastern Time on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.

Speaker 2 Things may have changed by the time that you listen to this, but we'll still be serving girls in Texas. Do you want to tell them why?

Speaker 5 Because girls are powerful!

Speaker 5 Oh, that's really

Speaker 5 love it. Way to go, Monica.

Speaker 3 My fellow in Austinites. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

Speaker 4 I'm Jimena Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy.

Speaker 5 And I'm Frank Ordoñas. I cover the White House.

Speaker 3 And today on the show, we're looking at the growing relationship between El Salvador and the United States.

Speaker 3 The country's president, Naib Bukele, visited the White House yesterday, and the two countries have an agreement where some people deported from the U.S. will be housed at a prison in El Salvador.

Speaker 3 Franco, this relationship has been in the news a lot these last few weeks. I kind of want to just start with the basics, though.
How did this agreement start? And why did it start in the first place?

Speaker 5 I mean, mean, I'll go back even farther. I mean, Trump's signature issue is obviously immigration, and he's long been looking for allies to help him with border policy, taking in migrants.

Speaker 5 And during the campaign, this latest campaign, he promised to go after gang members.

Speaker 5 He spent a lot of time talking about the Venezuelan gang trende de agua and promised to, you know, change rules so that they could be more easily deported, named them a terrorist organization, for example.

Speaker 5 So once in office, he signed an order allowing him to use this obscure law, it's called the Alien Enemies Act, to deport gang members.

Speaker 5 But again, he obviously needed somewhere for them to go, and that's where Bukele kind of came into the picture.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, why him? Like, what is it about Bukele that sort of prompted this relationship in the first place?

Speaker 5 Well, I mean, the challenge, again, is where to send them. I mean, many of these migrants are from Venezuela, and their relationship with Venezuela is not the greatest.

Speaker 5 The Venezuelan government has mostly, not always, but mostly refused the entry of migrants deported from the U.S., though they've accepted some. And Bukele is a very key ally of Trump.

Speaker 5 He has built a reputation in El Salvador as well and across the region of, you know, housing gang members in this mega prison in El Salvador. And he agreed.
to house alleged gang members from the U.S.

Speaker 5 who were deported using this old law, the Alien Enemies Act. And, you know, this relation keeps going.
Trump's talking about expanding it, sending more migrants, building more prisons.

Speaker 5 I mean, he's even floated the idea of sending some U.S. convicts there, but there are, you know, really big questions about the legality of that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Well, Jimena, let's talk about someone who has been at the center of this deal between the U.S.
and El Salvador, Kilmar Obrego-Garcia.

Speaker 3 He's a citizen of El Salvador, but he's been living in Maryland, and he was wrongfully deported, even according to administration officials.

Speaker 3 Broadly, what can you tell me about what happened here and how we ended up back in El Salvador in the first place?

Speaker 4 Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Speaker 4 was one of the over 200 people that were put on those first three flights from the U.S. to El Salvador, to the mega prison known as Sakot.

Speaker 4 He was not supposed to be taken to El Salvador, but administration officials, even immigration and customs enforcement officials say that there was a, quote, administrative error in their back end that resulted in him being arrested, detained, moved across detention facilities, and then eventually put on a flight that he should have never been on.

Speaker 3 What was Abrego Garcia's immigration status at the time? Like, how is it that he was even able to be even erroneously lifted from the U.S.?

Speaker 4 So immigration courts are really complicated.

Speaker 4 I think a lot of people think that it's you are either granted status or you're not granted status and you're removed from the country, but it's actually not that black and white.

Speaker 4 So a really good way to think about it is in immigration court, when you go through immigration proceedings, there's two questions that judges need to find answers to.

Speaker 4 The first is if you are even removable from the country to begin with. So Abrego Garcia went through the immigration court process in 2019.
During this time, a judge did find that he was removable.

Speaker 4 He had entered the country illegally. But then the second question is, is there any relief to prevent someone from being removed? And that's how you get things like asylum claims.

Speaker 4 And there are various arguments that people get a chance to make, even if... a judge decides that they are removable.

Speaker 4 So Obrego Garcia was able to make a claim for something that's called withholding of removal. Withholding means that you're withheld, like your removal does not actually happen.

Speaker 4 And he was able to successfully claim in front of a judge that if he was returned to El Salvador, he could be persecuted, he could face violence, particularly from gangs in El Salvador.

Speaker 4 So what happens then is you're in a little bit of a limbo. There is no significant pathway to something like a green card.
Now, his lawyer told me that he did have a work permit.

Speaker 4 So, you know, the judge decided he could not be deported to El Salvador.

Speaker 4 If the government wanted to pursue deportation proceedings to, let's say, a third country, they could do that.

Speaker 4 But he was granted permission to be in the United States.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Okay.
Well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the latest in his case.

Speaker 6 This message comes from NPR sponsor, CNN. Stream Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown Prime Cuts Now exclusively on the CNN app.

Speaker 6 These rarely seen, never-before-streamed episodes dig deep into the Parts Unknown archives with personal insights from Anthony Bourdain and rare behind-the-scenes interviews about each season.

Speaker 6 Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, Prime Cuts, now streaming exclusively on the CNN app. Subscribe now at cnn.com slash all access, available in the U.S.
only.

Speaker 1 This message comes from Schwab. Everyone has moments when they could have done better.
Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.

Speaker 1 Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it.

Speaker 6 This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification. Interior Designer and CIDQ President Siavash Madani explains why good design is so much more than looks.

Speaker 7 Good design is never just about aesthetics. It's about intention, safety, and impact.
Being NCIDQ certified means you've qualified to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

Speaker 6 Learn more at cidq.org slash npr. This message comes from Mint Mobile.
Starting at $15 a month, make the switch at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment for three months.

Speaker 6 5 gigabyte plan equivalent to $15 a month. Taxes and fees extra.
First three months only. See terms.

Speaker 3 And we're back. So yesterday in the White House, President Trump and President Bukele were asked about the possibility that Garcia Garcia would be returned to the U.S.
Here's how Bukele responded.

Speaker 8 Yeah, but I'm not releasing I mean we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.

Speaker 8 I mean we just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country of the Western Hemisphere and you want us to go back into the murder releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world.

Speaker 3 Franco, what has been the the administration's reasons for saying Brego Garcia can't be returned to the U.S. so far?

Speaker 7 I mean, it's kind of evolved quite a bit over time.

Speaker 5 I mean, first, they argued that the lower courts had no authority to call for his return.

Speaker 5 They also, while acknowledging that he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador, they kind of downplayed it and said it was just a paperwork issue and that he actually is an MS-13 member.

Speaker 5 Again, his lawyer says he's not.

Speaker 5 Now they're arguing that this is a foreign policy matter and that the courts have no jurisdiction over U.S.

Speaker 5 foreign policy and that they can't force El Salvador to return Epedego Garcia, that it's up to Bukele. But as you just heard, Bukele has no interest in doing that.

Speaker 5 But from the White House standpoint, it just changes quite a bit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and Jimena, an important wrinkle in all this is that the Supreme Court ordered the administration to, quote, facilitate his return.

Speaker 3 Why does the administration think that that's like open to interpretation?

Speaker 4 So yesterday during that same press conference at the White House, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters that if El Salvador wanted to return him, you know, she says we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.

Speaker 4 Now that's the same like few minutes also where you hear President Bukele say that they can't return him at the same time.

Speaker 4 So the stories are also a little bit confusing there over who has that authority, but administration officials are pretty united in that the courts should not have anything to do with foreign policy.

Speaker 4 They've been pretty in line with that, and that's how they've interpreted the ruling.

Speaker 4 Now, in a court filing that was issued by Obrego Garcia's lawyers today, they argue that the government should at least be required to request the release of Obrego Garcia, and that to date it has not done so, meaning that the Trump Trump administration has not put in a formal ask to El Salvador.

Speaker 5 I mean, like, when I talk to lawyers about this, they tell me that the Trump administration is basically kind of playing footseve with the court's orders.

Speaker 5 They're pushing it as far as they can, kind of using deniability, just kind of playing around, you know, so that they can say that they didn't. Obviously, facilitate is kind of a nuanced word.

Speaker 5 What does it mean? And they're, you know, they're stretching it to a degree. So I think that is something definitely that we're going to need to watch, like how does the court force this?

Speaker 5 But it's been very clear on this case as well as other cases

Speaker 5 that the Trump administration, especially when it deals with immigration, that they're willing to kind of stretch that language as much as possible to kind of fit whatever interests they have or that they argue is in the national interest of the U.S.

Speaker 4 And it's a lot of language that might not sound like it means something, but legally it ultimately does, right? So having the power to to return someone,

Speaker 4 being able to facilitate something, like all of those verbs ultimately have some legal meaning or some legal argument that is up to interpretation being fought out in the courts, but it gets really complicated in terms of who actually bears the responsibility and who actually has the mechanisms to follow through.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I think it's worth mentioning that even though the administration is making this sound like it would be such a heavy lift, there have been folks who were sent to El Salvador who have already been been returned, right?

Speaker 3 Like logistically, this has already been worked out in some way.

Speaker 4 Correct. So from those same three first flights that went to El Salvador, there were about nine people that were returned, eight women and one Nicaraguan man.

Speaker 4 The women were returned because at that prison, Sekot, they don't house women. And so Bukele sent the women back almost that same night.

Speaker 4 And then the Nicaraguan man, according to other media reports, was returned because Bukele said that it would harm other relations with other Central American countries if he was to house other nationals from those countries.

Speaker 4 And so there is a precedent for sending people back that the United States sent in for logistical reasons, for technical reasons, and for foreign policy reasons as well.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, before we wrap things up, I want to know what you guys are going to be watching for in the days to come.

Speaker 5 I mean, the relationship with Bukele and Trump is the kind that where if Trump asked for Alrigo Garcia to come back or any of the migrants to come back, I find it very hard to believe that Bukele would not comply and do so.

Speaker 5 So this case is not over, but it also has huge, huge implications on so many other cases of the 200 migrants that were sent before.

Speaker 5 The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport them.

Speaker 5 And they're arguing that, one, it's already wrong to deport people without due process, but it's another thing when the U.S. is not willing to correct its mistakes.

Speaker 5 So what happens with Alvarego Garcia could have big impacts on these other cases. The ACLU says others were wrongly deported.
So this would have impacts.

Speaker 5 It also could have impacts on future relationship with El Salvador. We were just talking earlier about Trump wanting to expand this.
So this would have an impact on that as well.

Speaker 4 I also agree with Franco that there are a lot of implications as to the way that the government is handling this case could be indicative of how it handles other cases.

Speaker 4 And experts say the administration is moving really fast. They wanted to move really fast.
They are moving really fast on a lot of these arrests, deportations,

Speaker 4 and that could result in more mistakes in the future.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Lots to keep up on. All right.
Well, let's leave it there for today. I am Ashley Lopez.
I cover politics.

Speaker 4 I'm Jimena Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy.

Speaker 5 And I'm Frank Ordoñas. I cover the White House.

Speaker 3 And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Speaker 6 This message comes from Vital Farms, who works with small American farms to bring you pasture-raised eggs. Farmer Tanner Pace describes what makes a pastor-raised egg unique.

Speaker 9 Before we first started with Vital Farms, I thought, you know, an egg's an egg, not a big deal, but it's hard for me to even eat an eggs that's not a vital farm egg now vital farms eggs are usually brown to lighter brown in color and when you crack a pasteurized egg you have to hit it harder than what a person thinks just because the shell quality is so good

Speaker 9 and basically when that egg cracks in the skillet or bowl that yolk is almost kind of an orange shade and that is Part of what I love about a vital egg is just the shade of yolk.

Speaker 9 I love pasteurized eggs because you can see the work and the pride that the farmers have and have put into these eggs.

Speaker 6 To learn more about how vital farms farmers care for their hens, visit vitalfarms.com.

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years.

Speaker 1 Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at rosettastone.com/slash slash npr.