Politics

Bukele, who met with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, was asked by a reporter if he’d consider releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland before he was arrested and deported back to his home country last month despite an immigration judge’s years-old order preventing the government from sending Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador.

“Are you suggesting I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? How can I return him to the United States, like I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I'm not going to do it,” he said.

Bukele added that the reporter’s question was “preposterous” and said he lacks the power to return him.

“We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country the western hemisphere. And you want us to go back into the releasing criminals, so we can go back to the the murder capital of the world, and that's that's not going to happen,” he said.