Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in contact with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man was wrongly denounced last month at the Méga-Prison Cecot d’El Salvador, said several familiar sources with their contact in ABC News.
The details of their contact were not immediately clear.
Karen Travers d’ABC News interviewed Secretary of State Rubio on Abrego Garcia at the meeting of Wednesday’s cabinet in Washington, and he wouldn’t say if there had been a form of contact.
“I will never tell you,” said Rubio. “And you know who else? I will never say to a judge, because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the President of the United States and to the executive branch, not a judge.”
A spokesperson for the State Department said: “We do not start reports from private diplomatic negotiations, whether real or not.”
The New York Times first pointed out the contact between the United States and the Salvador concerning Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia, from Salvadoran who lived with his wife and children in Maryland, was expelled in March in Salvador – despite an order from the 2019 court prohibiting his expulsion in this country because of the fear of persecution – after the Trump administration said he was a member of the MS -13 gang.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant in this document image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025.
Abrego Garcia family via Reuters
The federal judge supervising the case rejected a request from the Trump administration on Wednesday to delay the discovery in the case.
The ordinance intervened a week after the judge, the American district judge Paula Xinis, made an accelerated discovery break for seven days after the Trump administration asked him for the stay.
An Abrego Garcia lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told ABC News that they had accepted the seven-day break in good faith “.
“Today is the seventh day of the original seven-day period,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said on Wednesday. “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not back in the United States, and it seems to me that the government has not used this week wisely.”
The lawyer said that his team would understand “what humans of the American government” block the return of Abrego Garcia.
Justice Xinis earlier this month criticized the administration for its inaction on the unjustified deportation of Abrego Garcia and ordered the government’s representatives to testify under an accelerated discovery.
Following his order on Wednesday, judge Xinis set new deadlines for the government to respond to requests.
On May 5, the government had to respond and respond to all requests for discovery unanswered and complement their invocations of privileges in accordance with previous orders of the Court, judged Xinis.
The deposits of four witnesses of the government who, according to the complainants, have knowledge of the circumstances in the case must be completed by May 9, she ordered.
ABREGO GARCIA lawyers may request the court permission to include up to two additional depositions, Judge Xinis said.
The complainants have a deadline of May 12 to renew their requests in compensation, which previously asked the court to order the government to comply with the order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States and to order the government to show why it should not be detained so as not to comply with the previous orders of the court.
The government will have until May 14 to respond to this request, Xinis said.
The Trump administration, while recognizing that Garcia has been expelled to El Salvador by mistake, said his alleged affiliation MS-13 makes him ineligible to return to the United States. His wife and lawyer denied that he is a member of the MS-13.
In 2019, an immigration judge determined that Greo Garcia was removable from the United States on the basis of allegations of his gang affiliation made by local Maryland police. But Abrego Garcia was then granted by the reservoir of the abduction in his country of origin.
Judge Xinis at the beginning of this month judged that the Trump administration should “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, and that the United States Supreme Court unanimously affirmed this decision “, with respect duly the deference of the executive power of foreign affairs.”
