Kilmar Abrego Garcia has lived in the United States for over a decade, raising a family and working as a sheet metal worker in Maryland. Today, he remains locked in one of El Salvador’s most notorious prisons, despite a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring his return. The Trump administration, which deported Abrego Garcia under a mass expulsion deal last month, now claims it is unable to comply with the court’s order. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, for his part, insists he lacks the power to release the Maryland resident from detention. Legal experts and immigrant rights advocates call the situation a constitutional crisis and a direct threat to the rule of law.
Abrego Garcia entered the United States as an undocumented immigrant in 2011. In 2019, a police informant accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime. Though his asylum claim was denied, an immigration judge determined that he should not be deported due to a credible fear that he would face torture or persecution if returned to El Salvador. That ruling was ignored last month when he was swept up in a Trump administration deportation operation targeting individuals accused—but not convicted—of criminal activity.
He was sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) under the terms of a new agreement between the Trump administration and Bukele. Since his arrival, Abrego Garcia has remained imprisoned in the high-security facility while both governments deny responsibility for securing his release.
In a highly publicized meeting at the White House on Monday, Bukele responded to a reporter’s question about Abrego Garcia’s case with visible irritation. “Of course you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said. “How can I return him to the United States, do I smuggle him into the United States? …I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
The Trump administration cited Bukele’s statement in a court filing, arguing that it cannot be held liable for Abrego Garcia’s continued detention. The Department of Justice has claimed that its responsibility under the Supreme Court’s order begins only once Abrego Garcia is released by El Salvador and presents himself at a U.S. port of entry.
Legal experts say both leaders are deliberately deflecting accountability. “Everyone here is pretending,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “That he’s incapable of releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia.” Civil rights lawyer Patrick Jaicomo echoed the concern: “The U.S. is pretending it doesn’t have the power. And Bukele is pretending he doesn’t have the power. So who has the power?”
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0—including all Trump-appointed justices—that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. That ruling came after the administration admitted the deportation was an “administrative error.” Yet in the days since, the White House has publicly labeled Abrego Garcia a “terrorist” without evidence and asserted that he was “sent to the right place.”
“Just a few weeks ago, the Trump administration admitted that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of three who has been in the country more than decade, was an ’administrative error,’” said Sen. Bernie Sanders in a statement Monday. “The U.S. Supreme Court—in a 9-0 decision backed by every Trump-appointed justice—ruled that the administration must bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States. Now, in open defiance of the Supreme Court and without any evidence, the White House claims that Abrego Garcia is a ‘terrorist,’ who was ‘sent to the right place.’ This is a blatant LIE.”
As the standoff continues, rights groups warn that the case has broader implications for immigration policy and democratic governance. “Trump is taking monumental yet calculated steps to expand the scope of who can be subjected to arrest, incarceration, and deportation, and normalize the abduction and removal of people to another country without due process,” said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. “The Trump and Bukele partnership to outsource incarceration to El Salvador is setting a dangerous precedent of total disdain for basic human rights—not only for migrants, but for everyone in the United States, including residents and citizens, and especially Black and brown people who are disproportionately targeted by the U.S.’s unjust criminal legal system.”
A separate case involving Merwil Gutiérrez, a 19-year-old Venezuelan immigrant with no criminal record, has intensified concerns. Gutiérrez was deported to El Salvador despite not being the subject of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation. According to one ICE agent at the scene, “He’s not the one.” Another agent reportedly replied, “Take him anyway.”
Reichlin-Melnick cited Gutiérrez’s story as further proof of the administration’s willful disregard for individual rights: “It comes as Bukele today pretends that he has no power to release people held in his own prison.”
During the Oval Office meeting, Trump went further, suggesting that the CECOT model could be replicated in the U.S. “He needs to build about five more places,” Trump told Bukele. Referring to potential domestic targets, Trump added, “Homegrown” U.S. prisoners “are next.”
The comments drew widespread condemnation. “He’s pulling straight from the authoritarian playbook—and isn’t hiding it,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. “We condemn his comments in the strongest possible terms and demand the immediate release of wrongly imprisoned Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”
Legal analysts have described the administration’s response as a direct challenge to judicial authority. “This is a full-blown constitutional crisis and possibly the watershed moment for what the near future looks like,” wrote one commentator. “If this holds, there is no law but Trump’s law.”
Others point to the long-term consequences of allowing such actions to stand unchallenged. “In the Oval Office… both leaders were openly saying they’ll defy the Supreme Court and maybe even send American citizens to the prison camp in El Salvador,” said commentator J.P. Hill. “Nobody will be safe if we let this happen.”
As the crisis deepens, advocates continue to demand that the administration comply with the Supreme Court and bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. For now, he remains behind bars in a foreign prison, caught between two governments denying responsibility while the law hangs in the balance.
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