On April 14, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele will visit the White House per special invitation from President Donald Trump.
President Trump shared the invitation letter on X on April 1, commending Bukele for his cooperation with the U.S. in its “efforts to combat illegal migration.”
Just one month prior, on March 15, the Trump Administration unlawfully removed nearly 250 migrants from El Salvador and Venezuela to El Salvador – where they were sent without any due process – directly to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Videos surfaced online of men being dragged into the prison by heavily armed security forces, where they were shaved and forced into a prison system marred with allegations of torture and other human rights violations as well as corruption.
During today’s official visit, the two leaders are set to discuss further ways that their countries can collaborate.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt even mentioned that the administration is “floating the idea” of “deporting U.S. citizens” with criminal records, which would violate U.S. law.
“You have shown real leadership and are a model for others seeking to work with the United States,” Trump wrote in his invitation to Bukele.
But if Bukele is a “model,” it’s worth asking—a model of what?
Because behind the handshake and praise lie grave human rights violations and threats to democracy.
To understand the future of this relationship, we must first understand the reality on the ground in El Salvador.
Here are four things you need to know.
First, Bukele negotiated and offered economic incentives to gang leaders in exchange for reducing homicides.
Like his predecessors, there is strong evidence that the Bukele administration has negotiated with gang leaders to reduce violence in exchange for political support.
An investigation published by the Salvadoran media outlet El Faro revealed conversations held in 2020 between top Bukele administration officials and gang leaders, where gang leaders leveraged their cooperation with the government in exchange for better prison conditions and other financial incentives like microloans.
Investigations led by U.S. task force “Vulcan”—launched under the first Trump Administration—exposed further collusion between the Salvadoran government and organized crime groups.
In December 2021, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two of his top officials, Osiris Luna Meza and Carlos Amilcar Marroquin Chica, under the Global Magnitsky Act.
According to U.S. officials, these two “led, facilitated, and organized a number of secret meetings involving incarcerated gang leaders” and “these meetings were part of the Government of El Salvador’s efforts to negotiate a secret truce with gang leadership.”
Both were also implicated in facilitating the escape of top MS-13 gang leader “El Crook” or the “Crook of Hollywood,” who was later arrested in Mexico.
Among the slurry of executive orders passed on Trump’s first day in office was the “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
El Salvador’s MS-13 gang is now officially recognized by the U.S. as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO).
El Salvador, meanwhile, has recognized its street gangs as terrorist organizations since a 2015 Constitutional Court ruling.
So, according to both U.S. and Salvadoran law, the Bukele administration has negotiated with terrorists.
Second, the ‘Bukele Security Model’ is based on mass incarceration and human rights violations, but it fails to provide any real access to justice or due process.
Nayib Bukele’s approach has shown that locking up more than 5 percent of a nation’s 18-to-35-year-old male population with minimal due process—something not tried to that extent anywhere else in the world—can bring dramatic short-term reductions in criminal violence.
According to the government, El Salvador is now one of the safest countries in the hemisphere, boasting a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 residents.
At the center of the “Bukele Model” is the State of Exception, which was declared in March of 2022 in response to a surge of gang violence.
As WOLA recently analyzed, the State of Exception itself is an emergency measure that allows the government to freeze certain constitutional rights while it responds to the crisis at hand.
Last month, it was renewed for the 34th time.
The measure has also been coupled with a series of reforms passed by the legislature—incidentally controlled by Bukele’s Nueva Ideas party with a supermajority—that essentially allow the police to arrest at will.
Since March of 2022, over 85,000 people have been arrested.
The human rights organization Cristosal found in a research sample it conducted on arrests made during the first two years of the state of exception that 97.2% of those arrested faced charges for “illicit association,” which under the Salvadoran penal code means three or more people gathered “with the intention of committing a crime.”
Even Bukele has admitted that innocent people have been detained under the state of exception.
These innocent people, however, have no way to defend themselves.
A law passed in 2023 allows the use of mass trials of up to 900 people at the same time.
Due process has been completely dismantled in El Salvador, where the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” no longer exists.
Instead, thousands of citizens are languishing in El Salvador’s abusive prison system.
At least 350 people have died in custody as a result of these conditions.
Third, El Salvador is not building an independent judiciary with prosecutors and investigators capable of breaking links between government and organized crime—or capable of confronting other corruption in circles of power.
Instead, the Bukele government has systematically co-opted the judicial system with loyalists.
Other oversight safeguards, like inspectors-general, human rights ombudsman, and comptrollers, are also being weakened rather than strengthened.
In terms of addressing citizen insecurity, this model is not sustainable as it fails to address the root causes of violence and crime.
Fourth, the Salvadoran penitentiary system is marred with corruption, where there is no oversight, transparency, or accountability.
The state of exception in El Salvador has also intensified the dismantling of the right to access public information raising serious concerns for corruption.
This erosion of transparency has enabled the government to sidestep legal procedures, particularly in matters related to public spending and procurement and to avoid accountability.
A decree approved by the Legislative Assembly during the state of exception exempts the government from following established legal procedures for state purchases and contracting.
This includes bypassing requirements to publish contracts, evaluate vendors, or disclose expenditures related to public works and services.
As a result, the government has been able to carry out large-scale “express purchases” with no public oversight, like the construction of the Confinement Center for Terrorism (CECOT).
Similar opacity surrounds other megaprojects, such as the planned Pacific train and new airport.
There is also no oversight on the $6 million the United States recently sent to El Salvador to house Venezuelan migrants deported on March 15.
Corruption and lack of transparency should be of bipartisan concern.
The U.S. must not only monitor how its financial assistance is being used but also examine whether it is inadvertently supporting a government that systematically withholds information and evades accountability.
Lastly, there is a generalized environment of fear as civic space is shrinking and human rights defenders and independent journalists are under attack.
President Nayib Bukele is a master of media, where he has worked relentlessly to control the narrative in El Salvador.
Weaponizing social media, state-sponsored media outlets, and smear campaigns, he has been able to generate a climate of fear in El Salvador where self-censorship is widespread.
Those that do challenge the government’s policies and condemn human rights violations are swiftly branded a “gang sympathizer.”
This rhetoric, pushed heavily through Bukele’s own prolific online presence, is amplified by government-aligned outlets like Diario El Salvador, which regularly runs front-page attacks against civil society groups.
For Bukele, independent journalists are also an enemy, an enemy that the government watches closely.
In 2022, forensic investigations revealed that Pegasus spyware had been used to target dozens of journalists and civil society members.
As a result of ongoing intimidation, the investigative outlet El Faro was forced to relocate its administrative headquarters to Costa Rica.
Just last December, the home of an independent journalist from Radio Balsamo and her husband, who is a graphic designer, was raided by authorities.
image source from：https://www.wola.org/analysis/four-reasons-why-the-u-s-should-be-concerned-about-whats-happening-in-el-salvador/
