The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has been in contact with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, about Kilmar Abrego García, the man unfairly deported last month to Cecot Mega-Prison from El Salvador, multiple sources familiar with his contact told ABC News.
The details of his contact were not clear immediately.
Karen Travers de ABC News asked the Rubio Secretary of State about Abrego García at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting in Washington, and did not say if there was any form of contact.
“I will never tell you that,” Rubio said. “And you know who else? I will never tell a judge, because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive gross, not to any judge.”
A state department spokesman said: “We do not comment on reports of private diplomatic negotiations, regardless of whether they are real or not.”
The New York Times reported for the first time the contact between the United States and El Salvador in relation to Abrego García.
Abrego García, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador, despite a 2019 court order that prohibits deportation to that country due to fear of persecution, after the Trump administration said he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang.
Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran migrant in this booklet image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025.
Abrego Garcia Family Via Reuters
The federal judge supervised the case on Wednesday denied a motion from the Trump administration to further delay the discovery in the case.
The order occurred a week after the judge, the United States district judge, Paula Xinis, stopped the accelerated discovery for seven days after the Trump administration asked for the stay.
A lawyer from Abrego García, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told ABC News that they agreed for seven days “in good faith.”
“Today is the seventh day of the original seven-day period,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said Wednesday. “Kilmar Abrego García is not back in the United States, and it seems to me that the government has not been using that week wisely.”
The lawyer said that his team will discover “what humans of the United States government” are blocking the return of Abrego García.
Judge Xinis at the beginning of this month criticized the Administration for its inaction on the unfair deportation of Abrego García and ordered government officials to testify under oath through the discovery issued.
After his request on Wednesday, Judge Xinis established new deadlines for the Government to respond to applications.
By May 5, the Government must respond and respond to all pending discovery requests and complement its invocations of privileges consisting of the previous orders of the Court, Xinis ruled.
The statements of four witnesses of the government that the plaintiffs say that they have knowledge of the circumstances in the case must be completed before May 9, he ordered.
Abrego García’s lawyers can seek the court’s permission to make up to two additional statements, Judge Xinis said.
The plaintiffs have a deadline of May 12 to renew their relief motions, which previously asked the Court to order the Government to fulfill the order to facilitate the return of Abrego García to the United States, and to order the Government to demonstrate why it should not discredit it for not complying with the previous orders of the Court.
The government will have until May 14 to respond to that motion, Xinis said.
The Trump administration, although he acknowledged that Abrego García was deported to El Salvador by mistake, has said that his alleged affiliation of MS-13 makes him inelegable to return to the United States. His wife and lawyer have denied that he is a member of MS-13.
In 2019, an immigration judge determined that Abrego García was removable from the United States. According to the accusations of affiliation of his gang made by the Local Police in Maryland. But Abrego García was subsequently granted the retention of extraction to his country of origin.
Judge Xinis at the beginning of this month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego García, and the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously said that ruling, “with the due consideration due to the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
