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Bukele called the idea "preposterous," though the U.S. Supreme Court called on the administration to "facilitate" Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return.

Trump administration officials said Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a notorious gang prison in El Salvador, was a citizen of that country and claimed the U.S. has no say in his future. Bukele, who is a vital partner for the Trump administration in its deportation efforts, said "of course" he would not release him back to U.S. soil.

"The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?" Bukele, seated alongside Trump, said in the Oval Office Monday. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

In a court filing Monday evening, Joseph Mazzara, the acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, said it 鈥渄oes not have authority to forcibly extract鈥� Abrego Garcia from El Salvador because he is 鈥渋n the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.鈥�

The refusal of both countries to allow the return of Abrego Garcia, who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation over fears of gang persecution, is intensifying the battle over the Maryland resident's future. It also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

Since March, El Salvador accepted more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants 鈥� whom Trump administration officials accused of gang activity and violent crimes 鈥� and placed them inside the country's maximum-security gang prison just outside of the capital, San Salvador.

That prison is part of Bukele's broader effort to crack down on the country's powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele popular at home.

Bukele struck a deal under which the U.S. will pay about $6 million for El Salvador to imprison the Venezuelan immigrants for a year.

Democrats raised alarm about the treatment of Abrego Garcia and other migrants who may be wrongfully detained in El Salvador.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland pushed for a meeting with Bukele while he was in Washington to discuss Abrego Garcia's potential return, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the administration to release Abrego Garcia and others 鈥渨ith no credible criminal record鈥� who were deported to the maximum-security prison.

鈥淒isregarding the rule of law, ignoring unanimous rulings by the Supreme Court and subjecting individuals to detention and deportation without due process makes us less safe as a country,鈥� Shaheen said.

Though other judges ruled against the Trump administration, this month the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime law, to deport the immigrants. The justices did insist the immigrants get a court hearing before being removed from the U.S.

Over the weekend, 10 more people who the administration claims are members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs arrived in El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday.

Trump openly says he would also favor El Salvador taking custody of American citizens who committed violent crimes, a view he repeated Monday.

"We have bad ones too, and I'm all for it because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security," Trump said during the meeting. "And we have a huge prison population."

It is unclear how lawful U.S. citizens could be deported elsewhere in the world.

Before the press entered the Oval Office, Trump said in a video posted on social media by Bukele that he wanted to send "homegrowns" to be incarcerated in El Salvador, and added that "you've got to build five more places," suggesting Bukele doesn't have enough prison capacity for all of the U.S. citizens that Trump would like to send there.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court called for the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Abrego Garcia.

Trump claimed over the weekend he would return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. if the high court's justices said to bring him back, saying "I have great respect for the Supreme Court." But the tone from top administration officials was sharply different on Monday.

"He's a citizen of El Salvador," said Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff. "So it's very arrogant, even for American media, to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens."

Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed two immigration court judges 鈥� who are under Justice Department purview 鈥� found that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, though the man's attorneys say the government provided no evidence that he was affiliated with MS-13 or any other gang.

While Bukele's crackdown on gangs has popular support, the country has lived under a state of emergency that suspends some basic rights for three years.

Populists who successfully crafted their images through media, Bukele and Trump are of different generations but display similar tendencies in how they relate to the press, quell political opposition and use justice systems in their respective countries.

Bukele came to power in the middle of Trump's first term and had a straightforward relationship with the U.S. leader. Trump was most concerned with immigration and, under Bukele, the number of Salvadorans heading for the U.S. border declined.

Bukele's relationship with the U.S. grew more complicated at the start of the Biden administration, which was openly critical of some of his antidemocratic actions.