The Trump administration ratcheted up its confrontation with a U.S. district judge on Monday, as President Trump met El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House.

The key upshot is stark. Neither Trump nor Bukele appears willing to return the man at the center of a controversial deportation case — despite the fact that the judge has ordered the White House to “facilitate” his release.

Bukele said it was “preposterous” to suggest that he would return the man to the United States. 

Stephen Miller, a key Trump aide, alleged that the judge in the case was in effect suggesting the U.S. government should “kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.”

Supporters of the man in question, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, see it completely differently, of course.

They say that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, the country of his birth, in defiance of an earlier court order protecting him from removal. They see the deportation as flagrantly illegal — and they worry that if the Trump administration gets away with it, it will have broken the law without consequence and may do so again.

Here is where things stand right now.

What exactly happened at the Trump-Bukele meeting?

Trump and Bukele have been allies for some time. But that alliance has grown even closer in recent weeks after the Trump administration struck a $6 million deal with El Salvador to house deportees from the U.S. in Salvadoran jails.

When Abrego Garcia’s case came up, Trump himself said little, handing the question off to his Attorney General Pam Bondi; Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff; and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Bondi rested her defense of the deportation of Abrego Garcia on the fact that “he was illegally in our country” and that two separate immigration judges had been persuaded that he was a member of the gang MS-13.

Miller, for his part, argued, “It’s very arrogant for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens.”

Moments later, Rubio argued that there should be no “confusion” because, in Rubio’s view, Abrego Garcia “was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country.”

In the middle of all this, a reporter asked Bukele if he would return Abrego Garcia.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” he responded. “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States?”

Abrego Garcia and his supporters insist he is neither a terrorist nor gang member.

How does this fit into the legal battle?

Monday’s remarks at the White House ramp up the confrontation between Trump and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

In an order earlier this month, Xinis had blasted the administration, saying that Abrego Garcia had been apprehended in a “wholly lawless” act and deported “without legal basis.”

She also ordered the government to “facilitate and effectuate” his return to the United States.

The initial deadline she set for such an action — April 7 — has long passed. And the administration has made very clear that it does not believe it has the power to force Abrego Garcia’s return.

The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which weighed in on April 10 with a nuanced decision.

In Abrego Garcia’s favor, the justices emphasized that the U.S. government “acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.”

It also said that Xinis had “properly [required] the Government to ‘facilitate’” his release.

But, in Trump’s favor, the Supreme Court raised concerns about the use of the term “effectuate.”

The justices worried this was an overreach of the district court’s authority and that it therefore had to be clarified “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

What is the backstory here?

Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, says he entered the United States in 2012.

In 2019, he was detained by immigration authorities, apparently among a group of men gathered near a Home Depot. Under risk of removal, he applied to be released on bond, saying that he was not a flight risk.

He denied he was a member of MS-13 while the Department of Homeland Security alleged that he was.

A judge at a bond hearing ruled that “the determination that [he] is a gang member appears to be trustworthy.”

Abrego Garcia has always denied this and says the evidence against him — including his wearing of Chicago Bulls apparel — was weak.

But the judge said that although he was “reluctant to give evidentiary weight” to the clothing issue, he did not feel the same hesitancy about an apparently reliable confidential informant who “verified the Respondent's gang membership, rank, and gang name.”

Abrego Garcia’s supporters contest this, noting that this confidential informant reportedly said he was an MS-13 member active in the state of New York, where he says he has never lived.

Confusing the picture further, an immigration review hearing, also in 2019, found his claims that his life had been in danger in El Salvador “credible.”

This centers on Abrego Garcia’s claim that he and his siblings had their lives threatened by members of the Barrio 18 gang who were extorting his family over the small business they owned.

As if all that was not complicated enough, the immigration judge’s order granted Abrego Garcia protection against removal, but referred a number of times to “Guatemala” rather than El Salvador for reasons that are unclear.

What’s next? 

Tomorrow brings another key development: a new hearing before Xinis where she wants the government to explain how far it has gotten in its efforts to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

Monday’s events at the White House seem to make it obvious that very few such steps will have been taken.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers want the judge to push the Trump administration for an explanation as to why it should not be held in contempt of court.

But perhaps a more likely final destination is back to the Supreme Court, to decide the matter of whether the government can be compelled to return Abrego Garcia.

Anything else?

Trump created a new stir on a related matter at Monday’s meeting.

The president doubled down on the idea of deporting U.S. citizens — not just migrants — convicted of violent crimes.

It’s far from clear how such an action could be legal, and Trump himself says his administration is examining the law around such a move.

“If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem” with deportation, Trump said Monday. “Now, we’re studying the laws right now. Pam [Bondi] is studying. If we can do that, that’s good.”