Trump then turned to Bukele and said of the assembled reporters: "They'd love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people."
Garcia has never been convicted of criminal charges in the US or El Salvador. It's hard to overstate what a big fucking problem this is. Due process is dead, you're a criminal because we say so. There is no exaggeration left, justice is dead, we are now, at this very moment, a dictatorship.
Edit to add that Kilmar being deported wasn't a "mistake" like the DOJ claims. Here's Stephen Miller directly using his own words to refute that it was a mistake today. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5248143-stephen-miller-doj-man-mistakenly-deported/
“Nobody was mistakenly deported anywhere. That’s a big fact that all of you, most of you, have gotten wrong. No one was mistakenly sent anywhere. The only mistake that was made is a lawyer put an incorrect line in a legal filing that’s since been relieved. … He is El Salvadorian. He is an illegal alien. He was deported to El Salvador,” Miller told reporters at the White House on Monday.
And just to be clear about something dollar store Dr. Evil said here: no, he was not, and is not, an illegal immigrant. He was granted asylum and was here legally.
Edit to also add that you should read The Jakarta Method if you haven't already. This smacks really strongly of the times laid out in the book right before everything goes to hell in a reactionary takeover.