The Trump administration is now claiming to a federal judge that they are not permitted to return a Maryland father to his family after he was mistakenly deported to his native country of El Salvador. 

In a court filing on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security cited comments made by President Bukele about not releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 

Mr. Abrego was arrested near his home in Maryland back in March, without having been accused of committing any crime. He had previously been granted legal status in the United States, where he has lived with his native-born wife and children for more than a decade. 

Judge Paula Xinis has asked the Trump administration to keep her updated about Mr. Abrego’s status in El Salvador. On Monday, a lawyer for the government said they could not retrieve him. 

“DHS has established processes for taking steps to remove domestic obstacles that would otherwise prevent an alien from lawfully entering the United States,” writes the homeland security department’s general counsel, Joseph Mazzara. “DHS does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”

The status report to Judge Xinis was filed more than an hour past the five o’clock deadline on Monday evening. That is likely because government lawyers decided to include comments made by Mr. Bukele during an Oval Office meeting with President Trump on Monday afternoon. 

“I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Mr. Bukele told a reporter when asked if he would release Mr. Abrego to American custody. As he answered the question, Mr. Trump was sitting beside him grinning. 

Mr. Bukele also said he would not release the detainee from his country’s maximum security prison, known as CECOT, which has been home to some of El Salvador’s most dangerous criminal gang members. 

The government has hinged their case on deporting and detaining Mr. Abrego on the basis that he was denied bail by a judge in 2019 because someone had claimed that he was a gang member, though it was later disclosed that there was no evidence he was ever involved in such criminal organizations. Later that year, he was granted legal protected status and a work permit here in the United States because a judge believed he would face imminent harm should be deported to El Salvador. 

Mr. Abrego has been ordered returned to the United States, despite the White House’s attempts to delay. After going through the appellate process, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous emergency order on Thursday directing the Trump administration to follow Judge Xinis’s original order that Mr. Abrego’s return be “facilitated” by the government, though the justices did not set an exact timeline for when he should be brought back.