Prisons and Prayers

Over the last month, Nayib Bukele has been attributing public security in El Salvador to either mass incarceration or a miracle from God for those who pray.

Presidential Visit to Costa Rica

Bukele traveled to Alajuela, Costa Rica, on January 14 to join President Rodrigo Chaves for the groundbreaking for a new prison.  The month before, in December 2025, Chaves had visited the CECOT prison in El Salvador to see Bukele's most famous incarceration site. Bukele laid the first stone in the groundbreaking ceremony for Costa Rica's new "Centro de Alta Contención del Crimen Organizado" (CACCO), a maximum-security prison. Bukele has said that El Salvador sent the CECOT  architectural plans to Chaves so the new prison could use them as a model. In remarks at the groundbreaking for CACCO, Bukele told those assembled that the only way to resolve a nation's crime problem was through the use of force.  

The trip came three weeks before presidential elections in Costa Rica.  Opposition candidates, most notably Claudio Alpízar (Esperanza Nacional), accused Bukele of interference in a neighbor country's elections. They argued the visit was a political stunt designed to validate the security agenda of President Rodrigo Chaves’ handpicked successor, Laura Fernández, who eventually won the election.

National Prayer Breakfast in El Salvador

A few days later on January 19, Bukele was also talking about how El Salvador reduced crime when his government held its first ever National Prayer Breakfast in the old National Palace in central San Salvador.  From National Catholic Reporter:

Some Salvadoran Catholic bishops, evangelical clergy and other Christian leaders attended the event, modeled after a similar controversial prayer breakfast in the United States, which touts bipartisanship among Christian politicians. The one in El Salvador was said to be organized by the Próspera Foundation, which has hosted similar events in Guatemala. The investigative digital newspaper Plaza Publica in Guatemala has linked the organization to right-wing Christian groups with ties to the United States that have great political influence in the halls of Washington.

Members of the US Congress, Thomas Suozzi from New York and Lou Correa from California, were in attendance.  They offered praise for the Salvadoran leader on what they saw as the country's transformation.   

For his part, Bukele said:

"I don't know how to explain it other than it was the hand of God. No one can doubt that," he said. "It's proof that God makes things happen when you ask with faith. There's no other way to explain it." (Watch here).

Visit of President-elect  of Chile

Jose Antonio Kast, the right wing president-elect of Chile visited El Salvador January 30.  Like Chaves in Costa Rica, Kast wanted to align himself with Bukele's brand of "lock them up" security policy, so he also came to El Salvador to tour CECOT.   Kast took the tour of the mega-prison along with his future Minister of Security, to see for himself the cages and the tattooed gang members.

At a press conference with Kast that day, Bukele was asked by a Chilean journalist about human rights concerns in El Salvador's State of Exception.  Bukele proceeded to deliver an eight minute diatribe against human rights organizations who he claims never advocated for the victims of gang violence [editor's note -- not true], but only pushed for the human rights of the murderers and rapists in prison:  

National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.

Turning from the  subject of prisons back to thanking God, Bukele showed up on February 5 as an invited guest at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.  Bukele told the assembled politicians and faith leaders, that they should ask God for wisdom, and that only prayer answered by God could explain the "miracle" of the reduction in criminal violence in El Salvador:  

As part of Donald Trumps' remarks at the prayer breakfast, he praised Bukele as a "great ally" and then proceeded to tell those assembled, with classic Trump exaggeration, that Bukele builds prisons so big you can't see all the way from one end to the other.

These public appearances of Bukele illustrate a recurrent theme in his discourse.  He is completely unapologetic for a harsh regime of mass incarceration, regardless of allegations of human rights abuses and arbitrary detentions of innocents.  At the same time, he will wrap himself in the trappings of religion, suggesting that his administration is in line with a divine plan. The earliest example of this was Bukele's incursion into the Legislative Assembly with armed troops in February 2020 to demand the legislature approve a loan to fund his security plan. Taking a seat in front of his allies, Bukele said he was offering a prayer, before getting up, leaving and telling his supporters outside that prayer had led him to give lawmakers another week to accede to his demands.

Today, with a Legislative Assembly that agrees to all his requests instantly, Bukele tells the public his prayers are being answered.