Another 10 alleged gang members have been deported to El Salvador, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president is due to visit the White House.
“Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations arrived in El Salvador,” Rubio said in an X/Twitter post.
The alliance between Donald Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”, Rubio added. The US president is due to meet Bukele at the White House on Monday.
It comes as US officials said in court filings on Sunday that they were not obliged to help a Maryland resident get out of prison in El Salvador after he was erroneously deported, despite a supreme court ruling directing the government to “facilitate” his return to the US.
Attorneys for the Trump administration said the high court’s order to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García, 29, meant they should “remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here”, not help extract him from El Salvador.
The Trump administration has acknowledged that García, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was deported in March in violation of an immigration judge’s order blocking his removal to El Salvador. Trump administration lawyers were able to confirm on Saturday that García remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Trump said on Saturday he was looking forward to meeting Bukele and praised him for taking “enemy aliens” from the United States. He said the two countries were working closely to “eradicate terrorist organizations”.
Administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members that they have not backed up in court.
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the US government assertion that they were.
The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.
The deportations have been challenged in federal court. The US supreme court said the US government must give sufficient notice to immigrant detainees to allow them to contest their deportations. It did not say how those already in El Salvador could seek judicial review of their removals.
