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Trump finds an ally in El Salvador’s Bukele

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS DIGGING IN on deportations, insisting alleged gang members in the U.S. illegally will continue to be sent to El Salvador's mega-prison despite court orders mandating the return of a wrongly deported man.

Trump on Monday hosted President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House, the latest foreign leader to be brought into the Oval Office for a conversation with Trump and senior officials in front of the press.

The U.S. is paying $6 million to El Salvador to house alleged gang members at a maximum security prison. The Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca (CECOT) has a capacity of 40,000.

The U.S. has so far sent about 250 Venezuelan nationals to CECOT, including 10 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said were transferred over the weekend.

Trump and Bukele made news Monday by insisting they would not return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to the mega-prison despite an earlier determination by an immigration judge that he must not be deported to El Salvador because his life would be in danger.

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 last week that the U.S. must “facilitate” Garcia’s transfer back to the U.S. — though the ruling did not say the U.S. must “effectuate” his return .

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said when Trump put the question to her in front of reporters on Monday afternoon. “That’s not up to us.”

The question then went to Bukele.

“How could I return him to the United States?” he asked. “I smuggle him to the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

The Trump administration has acknowledged a "clerical error" resulted in Garcia's deportation to El Salvador, but they say the courts have no jurisdiction over the foreign policy implemented by the Executive branch.

Administration officials have also argued the same immigration judge that said Garcia should not be deported to El Salvador for safety purposes acknowledged there was some evidence he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

“I don’t understand what the confusion is,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the U.S. That’s where you deport people, back to their country…no court in the U.S. has the right to conduct the foreign policy of the U.S.”

Trump on Monday went further, saying he’d be open to sending American citizens who are violent criminals to El Salvador.

“If they’re criminals, and if they hit people with baseball bats over the head that happen to be 90 years old, if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah,” Trump said. “Yeah that includes them.”

DEMS FUME

Democrats are irate, saying it's the latest instance of the Trump administration ignoring court orders.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Monday sent a letter to El Salvador’s ambassador to the U.S. seeking to arrange a meeting with Bukele. Van Hollen signaled he might visit the prison directly if Garcia is not returned back to the U.S. soon.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, also floated potentially traveling to El Salvador to ensure Garcia’s........

© The Hill