In an interview with NBC News, Trump downplayed his role in securing Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., where he’ll face federal charges.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the Salvadoran man who was illegally deported in March — was not his decision.
“That wasn’t my decision,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News. “The Department of Justice decided to do it that way.”
Abrego Garcia was flown back to the United States on Friday to face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee, after prosecutors unveiled the indictment this week. It comes months after the Trump administration admitted it had mistakenly deported him — which the Supreme Court declared was illegal, ordering the government to “facilitate” his return — leading to an intense political and legal firestorm throughout the country over the ethics of the administration’s mass deportation policy.
“It should be a very easy case” for federal prosecutors, the president told NBC News. Trump said that he did not talk to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele about Abrego Garcia’s return.
Despite the high court’s order, Trump officials have for months resisted bringing Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., arguing it was out of their hands as he was in Salvadoran custody.
“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told lawmakers last month.
The Trump administration repeatedly labeled Abrego Garcia as a violent gang member, which his family and lawyers have flatly denied and a federal judge labeled as “a vague, uncorroborated allegation.”
Lawyers for the administration called his deportation “an administrative error,” but did not immediately facilitate his return, despite the Supreme Court instructing them to.
Intense backlash followed, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) traveling to El Salvador to meet with him and demand his return. Republicans, in turn, bashed Van Hollen and Democrats for defending him.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have urged the public to treat the allegations with suspicion.
“They’ll stop at nothing at all — even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable — just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of his lawyers, told reporters Friday.
“He’s not going to be convicted of these crimes,” the lawyer added. “There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy.”
