In exchange for jailing more than 200 deportees, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has become a favorite of the Trump administration.
For the U.S. government, sending deportees accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador fits with President Trump’s promise to aggressively deport undocumented migrants and to crack down on crime.
For El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, the rewards appear to have included, among other things, a White House visit and continued protections for Salvadoran immigrants in the United States.
While the exact terms of the agreement have not been made public, other leaders around the world may be watching, experts and immigration lawyers say, especially as the Trump administration searches for other countries willing to take expelled migrants of other nationalities.
“Other leaders and countries are trying to emulate the Bukele arrangement,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, a director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group that has represented immigrants in lawsuits against the Trump administration. Countries are increasingly “raising their hand to volunteer their incarceration facilities and to facilitate the deportation of people,” he added.
A White House spokeswoman has said the administration is “grateful for President Bukele’s partnership” and for the use of his maximum-security prison, adding, “There is no better place for these sick, illegal criminals.”
