President Donald Trump on Saturday stated that he was not responsible for the decision to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 gang member embraced by Democrats who is at the center of a high-profile deportation case, back to the United States.
Trump said the Justice Department “decided to do it that way, and that’s fine” by him. “That wasn’t my decision,” he told NBC News.
Trump added that he has not recently spoken with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele regarding the decision to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States, despite earlier discussions about the case.
Trump’s comments came a day after Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. to face a slew of federal criminal charges, marking a reversal of the White House’s earlier pledge that he would never be allowed to reenter the country—and if he did, he would be immediately deported.
Instead, the Justice Department announced that Abrego Garcia will now stand trial on charges related to a 2022 incident in Tennessee, where police suspected him of transporting undocumented immigrants.
“It should be a very easy case” for federal prosecutors, Trump told the outlet.
Abrego Garcia spent three months in custody in El Salvador following his deportation in March. Prior to his removal, he had been living in Maryland.
Initially, a Justice Department attorney claimed Abrego Garcia had been wrongfully deported, but that lawyer was later dismissed. An immigration judge had previously ruled that while Abrego Garcia could be deported, he could not be sent to El Salvador due to the risk of persecution or torture.
The administration later reversed course, asserting the deportation was lawful. Officials argued that because Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 — a finding supported by two prior immigration court hearings — and the gang has since been designated a terrorist organization, the protections against removal to his home country no longer applied.
The case quickly became a political flashpoint. In April, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, traveled to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia, who was being held in the country’s high-security CECOT prison.
In a series of X posts, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller explained the charges that Abrego Garcia faces, adding that if convicted, he’ll serve time and then be deported again.
“This is the monster Democrats made out to be a hero. This is who they tried to set free. Now this illegal predator will face hard justice,” Miller wrote in one post that contained screenshots of federal charging documents filed in court.
Miller also responded to a post from Van Hollen, who wrote that “after months,” the Trump administration “relented to our demands for compliance with court orders” so Abrego Garcia gets “due process.”
“What a fool. There is no more ‘process’ for deporting a crim alien with a final removal order, no matter how much he is admired by Dems. He’s here because new evidence has resulted in a massive criminal indictment. He will be tried, jailed and then deported again to El Salvador,” Miller wrote.
Miller then clapped back at Axios for writing a “moronic headline” regarding Abrego Garcia’s return.