El Salvador Perspectives

Today we have a collection of links from the international press, covering topics from US deportations to E Salvador, to the hotel industry, to the State of Exception and MS-13. Man wrongfully deported to El Salvador must be returned to US, court rules (The Guardian, June 24, 2025) -- An appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to return a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the US and to explain how it is complying in a ruling apparently designed to break a pattern of apparent government defiance of judicial orders. Trump administration says ICE could deport Abrego Garcia to country other than El Salvador if he's released from jail (CBS News, June 26, 2025) -- At a hearing in Maryland federal court on Thursday, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn said that once Abrego Garcia is released from detention, Immigration and Customs Enforcement intends to begin removal proceedings to send him to a "third country," rather than El Salvador. Kidnapped ...

Today the world is paying attention to Nayib Bukele, the president-jailer who cut a deal with the US to imprison persons the US sought to deport.  Now the world may learn more of Bukele's back story since  the journalists at El Faro have released video interviews of two leaders of the 18 Revolucionarios gang, one of three gangs which long controlled neighborhoods throughout El Salvador.  They describe how Bukele's team has made deals with gang leaders throughout the Salvadoran president's political career, up to the rupture with the gangs marked by Bukele's imposition of the State of Exception in El Salvador. The interviews were conducted by Oscar and Carlos Martinez, journalist brothers who have been reporting on the gangs and their dealings with politicians and government officials for more than a decade.  They published the interviews in a series of long video segments here . One of the two gang members is Carlos Cartagena López, aka "Charli de IVU", a lead...

The weekend of March 15-16 saw the first implementation of Nayib Bukele's offer to the United States to act as the offshore jailers of persons Donald Trump wants to expel from the country. During the visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to El Salvador in February, Bukele offered to not only to take back Salvadorans from the US, but also to accept deportees from other nations, and even to imprison US citizen criminals for a fee. From the State Department press statement  at the time: Multiple agreements were struck to fight the waves of illegal mass migration currently destabilizing the entire region. President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully. He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country. And in an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, President Bukele offe...

One common assertion by proponents of the current State of Exception in El Salvador is that the justice system will correct errors and only guilty persons will be locked up for any significant period of time. In fact, changes in the law, and a court system which does not act independently of the Bukele regime, mean the reality is quite different for the 70,000 persons arrested since March 2022. 1. Arbitrary arrests with little or no proof. The failures of the criminal justice system in El Salvador under the State of Exception begin with the arrests and detention of persons, usually in marginalized communities, without sufficient proof of any criminal activity. The State of Exception, which continues to be extended every month, permits an arrest to be made on mere suspicion, without police seeing a crime being permitted and without an order for arrest.  The online periodical El Faro documented hundreds of cases of arrests with flimsy evidence in an article titled  State of E...

September 2023 parade in Tonacatepeque I do not often write in the first person in this space, but as I develop this series of posts at the start of the third year of the State of Exception, it feels important to describe how I have seen El Salvador change during that time. I have spent more than twenty years visiting and getting to know well a small community in the municipality of Tonacatepeque, northeast of San Salvador.  This collection of small houses, with water which arrives some of the days, with chickens and dogs and small children roaming the streets, is dear to me. And for most of the time I have known it, the community has been under control of the MS-13 gang. Two years into the State of Exception, the "muchachos" are no longer present, and the difference it makes in people's lives is real and observable. Residents now cross gang boundaries from one territory to another, no longer fearing deadly retribution as a consequence.  New little businesses have opened ...

This article first appeared on the website of InsightCrime with the title  Capture of MS13 Leader Exposes US-El Salvador Rift  . By Steven Dudley November 9, 2023 Mexican authorities have captured a top Salvadoran gang leader who had been secretly released from an El Salvador prison and had fled the country. His capture, and expulsion to the United States to face charges, exposes the growing rift between the US and El Salvador over how to deal with top-level gang members. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Mexican authorities had captured Élmer Canales Rivera, alias “Crook,” in Tapachula, a city along the Mexico-Guatemala border that is a crucial passage point and refuge for migrants. La Prensa Gráfica also reported the capture on November 9, citing an anonymous source. However, it did not say where he was captured. Crook is a member of the so-called ranfla histórica, the “historic leadership board” of the Mara Salvatrucha ( MS13 ). The ranfla origi...

Originally published September 22, 2023 at InsightCrime under the title  El Salvador Police Reports Contradict Bukele's Triumphalism by Roberto Valencia More than a dozen confidential reports from El Salvador’s National Civil Police obtained by InSight Crime reveal that, although "weakened" after a year and a half under a state of exception, the three main gangs operating in El Salvador remain a subtle threat. The Mara Salvatrucha ( MS13 ), Barrio 18 Sureños, and Barrio 18 Revolucionarios still maintain 54 armed groups, mostly in rural areas. Nearly 43,000 people who have been profiled as gang members remain at large. These people have been classified into three categories: active members (homeboys), aspiring members (chequeos), and "collaborators," a broad designation for those who allegedly work with or for these gangs, assisting in a number of tasks. These numbers call into question the triumphalism of President Nayib Bukele’s administration, which has mounte...

The US State Department issued its 2022 country report on International Religious Freedom for El Salvador last week.   The annual reports are issued for countries around the world and describe the ability of residents in a country to freely practice their religious faith.   This year's report notes the varied impacts of the State of Exception on churches throughout El Salvador, particularly on those church leaders who worked in gang-controlled communities or sought to rehabilitate and extract persons from the gangs. The State Department report mentions some positive impacts of the State of Exception on religious freedom. In the second half of 2022, persons in formerly gang controlled communities felt freer to travel to religious services and activities, including those that involved crossing gang boundaries.  Extortion of religious bodies by gangs has declined with the breakup of gangs by security forces. However, the report also notes that the Salvadoran gover...

April has brought much to read in English about El Salvador, especially in the area of US relations in the context of the ongoing suspension of constitutional rights in El Salvador and in the area of government finances and the economy.    The State of Exception and US Relations  After making a visit to El Salvador and meeting with Bukele, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida wrote an editorial in Compact Magazine proclaiming: Bukele is a democratically elected leader who has enacted reforms with the collaboration of legislators and the people who elected him. I would be the first to condemn any tyrannical move from Bukele, but I also think it’s absurd to criticize him for giving Salvadoran people their freedom back.... This isn’t a call to make a celebrity out of Nayib Bukele or to ignore the fragility of his nation’s democratic institutions. It’s simply a call to inject some common sense into our treatment of friendly nations. President Biden seems to think he can...

The Historic Center of El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador is being transformed. Streets which were once crowded and overflowing with an informal economy of street vendors have been emptied.   Historic buildings are being seen once again.  Pedestrians stroll and take selfies as the government seeks to attract tourism and investment into the heart of the City. The overall purpose of the renovation is to encourage tourism in the Historic Center and to create a more “orderly” area of the city.  There is a new  Historic Center website  in Spanish and English which includes maps, virtual tours, and descriptions of available guided tours.  The site even contains links to a new smartphone app to guide visitors through the area. But what of the vendors who formerly earned their subsistence living on those streets? They have been displaced from the center with promises of spots in municipal markets around the City.  The government says they voluntaril...