U.S. President Donald Trump meets on Monday with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, a leader praised by the administration for opening his country’s prison system to alleged gang members and detainees Trump wants out of the United States.
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, including a Maryland resident it has acknowledged deporting by mistake.
Trump, who came into office in January promising to reform U.S. immigration policy, has found a kindred spirit for that effort in Bukele. The migrants El Salvador accepts from the U.S. are housed in a high-security prison critics say engages in human rights abuses.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was sent to El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center on March 15 despite an order protecting him from deportation, has drawn particular attention.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an order from Judge Paula Xinis directing the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” his return, but said the term “effectuate” was unclear and might exceed her authority.
However, in a court filing on Sunday, the administration said it was not obligated to help Abrego Garcia get out of prison in El Salvador.
The Trump administration deported more than 200 immigrants by invoking the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime measure — alleging they were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Andrew Chang explains how Trump is interpreting the language of the 1798 law in order to avoid the standard immigration court system, and why experts say it’s a slippery slope.
Bukele doing ‘fantastic job’: Trump
Trump told reporters on Friday that his administration would bring Abrego Garcia back if the Supreme Court directed it to.
“I think he’s doing a fantastic job, and he’s taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn’t be able to take care of from a cost standpoint,” Trump told reporters on Sunday about Bukele, referring to the cost of imprisoning the detainees in El Salvador.
“He’s been amazing. We have some very bad people in that prison. People that should have never have been allowed into our country.”
Pressed on whether he had concerns about alleged human rights abuses at the mega-prison, Trump said no.
“I don’t see it. I don’t see that,” he said.
The U.S. on Saturday deported 10 more people it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the alliance between Trump and Bukele “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the U.S. government assertion that they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.
Last month, after a judge said flights carrying migrants processed under the Alien Enemies Act should return to the U.S., Bukele wrote “Oopsie… Too late” on social media alongside footage showing men being hustled off a plane in the dark of night.
Bukele’s strongman tendencies first gained widespread attention internationally when he sent armed security forces and an ultimatum to the legislature in early 2020 to push through his security legislation. After positive 2021 legislative election results, he replaced judges of the constitutional court with compliant ones.
He then manoeuvred to run for re-election, even though El Salvador’s constitution banned presidents from serving consecutive five-year terms.
El Salvador had one of the worst homicide rates in the world until the past few years, when a significant drop has occurred.
Bukele and his supporters hail his tough-on-crime approach — some estimates have at least five per cent of the country’s male population between 14 and 29 detained — but the U.S. Treasury Department in Joe Biden’s administration alleged that Bukele’s government secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the gangs to quell deadly violence.
The Biden administration alleged that Bukele’s government bought the gangs’ support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders, including prostitutes and cellphones. Bukele has vehemently denied the accusations.
As well, the U.S. State Department in Biden’s term expressed concern about what it called “credible reports” of human rights abuses such as arbitrary arrest, a lack of due process, torture at the hands of security forces and life-threatening prison conditions.Â
Maryland man sent back despite previous ruling
In the case of Abrego Garcia, his lawyers said that no federal criminal or extradition proceeding were ever brought against him.
Abrego Garcia’s wife and five-year-old son are U.S. citizens and reside in Maryland, the family’s legal complaint said.
On March 12, he was pulled over by ICE officers while driving and handcuffed while his son was in the backseat of the car, according to the complaint.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Abrego Garcia was wrongfully placed on the third flight to El Salvador despite a 2019 judgment granting him protection from deportation.Â
Democrats and human rights groups have slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for a video late last month in which he appears before a crowded group of tattooed men behind bars in an El Salvador prison.
Noem speaks to camera to discourage people arriving at U.S. border points, and says, “know that this facility is one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”
In the first days of the administration, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration considers any unauthorized person in the U.S. a “criminal.” Entering the country between border points or staying in the U.S. without legal status has traditionally been considered a civil offence.
