The Trump administration has stepped up its defiance of a Supreme Court order to return a Maryland father removed to El Salvador as a result of what Trump officials called an “administrative error.” Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally transferred from the U.S. on March 15, then imprisoned without due process inside CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran mega-prison known for torture and other human rights abuses. On Monday, President Trump welcomed Salvadoran leader Nayib Bukele to the White House to personally thank him for accepting some 300 people flown out of the U.S. since mid-March — Abrego Garcia among them. Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, Bukele — who’s called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” — said he does not have the power to release Abrego Garcia.

President Nayib Bukele: “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

Reporter: “But you could release him inside El Salvador.”

President Nayib Bukele: “Yeah, but I’m not releasing — I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back into the — releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.”