The fate of a wrongfully deported man to El Salvador hangs in the balance as that country’s president joins President Donald Trump in refusing to allow Kilmar Abrego Garcia to return to the United States after being wrongly deported.

The two leaders appear willing to deny Garcia his liberty and potentially his safety despite having no criminal record and a lack of evidence against him.

President Trump and President Bukele push an unproven ‘terrorist’ narrative to incarcerate the wrongfully deported man

Trump spoke to reporters alongside El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the first visit by the leader of the Central American country to the White House after the controversial deportation of numerous individuals to El Salvador. During their joint press conference, Bukele was asked about returning Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland before he was mistakenly deported despite a court order for him to remain in the United States.

Bukele responded to reporters by repeating an unproven accusation against Abrego Garcia: “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”

When asked about the possibility of releasing Garcia within El Salvador, Bukele replied, “We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.”

NBC News reported that Bukele’s comments, cosigned by Trump and members of his administration, repeat unproven accusations made against Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has repeatedly labeled him a member of the MS-13 gang, based on a judge’s 2019 ruling. However, Abrego Garcia has always denied gang affiliation with MS-13 or any other group; no evidence has been presented to suggest otherwise.

NBC stated court filings show Abrego Garcia has never been charged with a crime in either country. Nevertheless, he is currently being held in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a prison accused of subjecting inmates to torture, malnutrition and other human rights abuses, per the outlet.

Law, politics and diplomacy at the heart of Abrego Garcia’s case

Bukele’s comments extend the weeks-long legal and political fight over Abrego Garcia, who fled El Salvador for the United States as a teenager, stating that he had suffered violence and been threatened with death at the hands of gang members. Despite not initially being authorized to enter the United States, a judge in 2019 granted Garcia the right to stay in the U.S., ruling that he would likely face gang violence if he returned to El Salvador. Garcia was living in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their child when ICE arrested him in March. He was then mistakenly deported to El Salvador alongside over 100 Venezuelan gang members deported by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act, a controversial and rarely used law.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court recognized that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported and ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his return to the United States. Despite the directive, administration officials have pushed various narrow interpretations and false readings of the decision to avoid taking steps to bring Garcia back to the U.S. The administration has also ignored the fact that it’s actively paying the El Salvadoran government to house deportees in its prison, undercutting the argument that the United States has no power to influence that nation’s decisions concerning what to do with Abrego Garcia.

For now, Trump and his Salvadoran counterpart both seem content to keep Abrego Garcia locked away. Meanwhile, the legal and political fight to free Abrego Garcia and return him to the United States continues.