During an Oval Office meeting, AG Pam Bondi defended the deportation of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador where he is currently being held in prison.
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00:00Do you plan to ask President McKayley to help return the man who your administration says was mistakenly deported to El Salvador?
00:10Well, let me ask Pam, would you answer that question?
00:13Sure, President. First and foremost, he was illegally in our country.
00:18He had been illegally in our country.
00:19And in 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that he was a member of MS-13 and he was illegally in our country.
00:32Right now, it was a paperwork. It was additional paperwork that needed to be done.
00:37That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us.
00:42The Supreme Court ruled, President, that if, as El Salvador wants to return him, this is international matters, foreign affairs,
00:50if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.
00:56So will you return him, President McKayley?
00:58And you are doing a great job. Thank you.
01:00Mr. Miller, wait a minute. Can you just also respond to that question?
01:04Because, you know, it's asked by CNN and they always ask it with a slant because they're totally slanting because they don't know what's happening.
01:11That's why nobody's watching them. But would you answer that question also, please?
01:15Yes, gladly. So, as Pam mentioned, there's an illegal alien from El Salvador.
01:21So, with respect to you, he's a citizen of El Salvador.
01:26So, it's very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens as a starting point.
01:34As two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13,
01:37when President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization.
01:43That meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law, which I'm sure you know, you're very familiar with the INA,
01:49that he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States.
01:53So, he had a deportation order that was valid, which meant that under our law,
01:58he's not even allowed to be present in the United States and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation.
02:04This issue was then, by a district court judge, completely inverted,
02:10and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.
02:17That issue was raised to the Supreme Court.
02:19And the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed 9-0 unanimously,
02:27stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the President could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador,
02:37who, again, is a member of MS-13, which, as I'm sure you understand,
02:42rapes little girls, murders women, murders children, is engaged in the most barbaric activities in the world,
02:47and I can promise you, if he was your neighbor, you would move right away.
02:50So, you don't plan to ask for any help to get him back?
02:52But the Supreme Court's asking to...
02:53Is that what's the ruling in the Supreme Court, Steve?
02:56Was it 9-0?
02:57Yes, it was a 9-0.
02:59In our favor.
03:00In our favor, against the district court ruling,
03:02saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States.
03:07As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador's sole discretion,
03:13was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.
03:17No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here,
03:20because he is a citizen of El Salvador.
03:23That is the president of El Salvador.
03:25Your questions about it, per the court, can only be directed to him.