Trump says he ‘could’ bring Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador, but won’t

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday acknowledged that he could secure the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. (Courtesy Jennifer Vasquez via CNN Newsource)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday acknowledged that he could secure the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month but refuses to do so.

The comments appear to contradict previous remarks made by him and his top aides who say the US does not have the ability to return Abrego Garcia because he is in the custody of a foreign government, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his return.

“You could get him back. There’s a phone on this desk,” ABC News’ Terry Moran, said to Trump during an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday night.

“I could,” Trump replied.

Pointing to the phone, Moran said: “You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the President of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back.’”

“And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” the president added. “But he is not.”

“I’m not the one making this decision,” Trump said, adding that he says government lawyers do not want to help bring Abrego Garcia back to the US.

The administration admitted in court last month that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant, was deported because of an administrative error, ignoring a judge’s 2019 ruling that he couldn’t be sent back to his native El Salvador, where his life could be in danger.

US officials, however, have since refused to return Abrego Garcia to the US, arguing they lack power to force El Salvador to do so.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters earlier in April.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said in a recent meeting with Trump that his administration isn’t “very fond of releasing terrorists” detained in his country and vowed to keep Abrego Garcia in prison.

Abrego Garcia entered the US illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019 withheld his removal, citing concerns for his safety. That meant he could not be deported to El Salvador but could be deported to another country. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”

US officials detained the father of three on March 12 and deported him after alleging that he was confirmed to be a member of MS-13 by a “reliable source.”

The Trump administration has designated the MS-13 gang as a foreign terrorist organization. Abrego Garcia and his wife, however, dispute the claim and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward it.

“This is a MS-13 gang member,” Trump again said in the ABC interview, citing Abrego Garcia’s tattooed hands which contain skulls covering their eyes, ears and mouth, which a police document described as “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.”

“He said he wasn’t a member of a gang. And then they looked on his knuckles, he had MS-13,” Trump said, claiming Abrego Garcia’s knuckles displayed the name of the gang.

Moran responded that the Maryland man “had some tattoos that are interpreted that way” and that the numbers and letters were “photoshopped.”

Trump repeatedly argued, however, in response that a photo that was posted on Truth Social of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles was not photoshopped, while criticizing the ABC News journalist, telling Moran at one point, “No, no. He had MS as clear as you can be, not interpreted.”

The online photo displayed Abrego Garcia’s tattooed knuckles with the letters and numbers of the gang above each tattoo and was altered to show the correlation of each tattoo to what the Trump administration says relates him to the name of the gang.

Experts have cast doubt over whether Abrego Garcia’s tattoos prove gang ties.

The judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s case said last Tuesday that the Trump administration was not acting in “good faith” and accused officials of intentional noncompliance with their obligation to produce information.

CNN’s Devan Cole and Shania Shelton contributed to this report.

Written by Karina Tsui, CNN