Bukele comes to Washington


Throughout his presidency, Nayib Bukele has craved the media spotlight and has wanted to be portrayed as one of the world's visionary leaders.  He has found that images of cruelty to persons alleged to be gang members get him publicity around the world, and lots of it. In April 2020, the global media shared images of half-naked prisoners stacked together like sardines in the very early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Bukele vowed revenge for a surge in homicides. The media spotlight would turn back to El Salvador in 2022 to report on the State of Exception and squadrons of heavily armed police and military seizing tens of thousands of persons of the streets with little regard to the innocent persons among them.

In 2023 to much fanfare, Bukele announced that he was opening the largest prison in the world. The Center for Confinement of Terrorists or "CECOT" would hold the worst of the worst so they could never terrorize El Salvador again he told his country, and the global media spread the images of this new prison which were only available from the government's own media productions.  International media would be allowed later for tightly-scripted and controlled visits to the gleaming new cages filled with tattoo-covered gang members.       

Then in February 2025 Bukele made an offer to the Trump administration which it couldn't turn down -- Bukele offered to imprison those Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang members whom Trump had been decrying on the campaign trail.  There would only be a modest fee involved, and Bukele had his brand new CECOT prison to hold them.  Bukele would even toss in slick videos created by his in house media production company to show just how tough the United States was being.      

It was such a good deal that the Trump administration could not waste any time to take advantage of it.   Why let time-consuming obligations like due process and evaluation of the facts get in the way?  Just bundle hundreds of Venezuelans with tattoos onto planes, sign a declaration under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, and hurry up to take off before a judge can stop you.  Once your plane is over the Gulf of Mexico (oops, I mean the Gulf of America), don't turn around even if there is a court order. Nayib Bukele's storm troopers and film crews are waiting for your human cargo who think they are being flown to Venezuela.

This week, Bukele received his reward for being so generous with prison cell space.  There he was, in a black T-Shirt and jacket, looking like a tech CEO, sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office. Bukele, who thrives on publicity and photo ops, was chumming it up with the president of the most powerful country in the world. Trump walked Bukele around the office, perhaps not even realizing that Bukele had a live mike on and was live-streaming the event on his social media pages in El Salvador.  Trump wondered out loud about sending "home grown" US citizen criminals to El Salvador -- maybe Bukele's offer to be the world's coolest jailer could extend to building five extra prisons?      

There was, however, that unfortunate matter of having rendered Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now living in Maryland, into the CECOT prison as the result of an "administrative error", and the US Supreme Court which had ruled unanimously that Trump's team must facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody and return him to the US.  When asked about this matter by the CNN White House reporter, with Bukele listening, one Trump official after another proclaimed that Abrego Garcia was a gang member and a terrorist, and above all, he was a Salvadoran citizen in a Salvadoran prison.  "What happened to him now was a matter for El Salvador, and how dare a court try to dictate how Trump and Marco Rubio conduct foreign policy!" they declared.       

Of course Bukele was not going to put his hosts in an awkward position by suggesting that the decision whether or not to release Abrego Garcia actually belongs entirely to the United States.   Although he could have said "Whatever you ask me to do to comply with your laws I will do,"   Bukele instead said it was preposterous:


COLLINS: Can President Bukele weigh in on this? Do you plan to return Garcia? BUKELE: How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous TRUMP: These are sick people

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 14, 2025 at 11:02 AM


Bukele got his reward for playing the game so well.  He did not get any concessions for the condition of Salvadoran migrants living perilously in the US.  He did not get any promises for foreign aid.   He did not get a reduction of the 10% global tariffs which also hit El Salvador.  The reward he sought was this highly produced video of a Salvadoran president being treated like an equal by the president of the United States:



Bukele had outlasted the Biden administration.  Under Biden, US-El Salvador relations hit a low point 2021, although they had recently turned around as Washington decided not to pick public quarrels with the immensely popular Bukele.  Yesterday those bilateral relations -- between Trump and his MAGA administration and the authoritarian Salvadoran president who rules without checks and balances -- were exemplified by this photo tweeted by Bukele:


One of the better analyses of Bukele's visit to Washington was written by Ricardo Avelar in El Faro titled Beware the Ides of April: Nayib Bukele Exports Contempt for the Law.  Avelar warns what Trump may be learning from Bukele's example. He writes:

Bukele has already offered previews of his playbook—refined masterclasses in dismantling checks and balances. When a judicial order to halt deportation flights to El Salvador was ignored, his response was telling. Rather than acknowledge the court’s authority or offer an apology, he reacted with casual disdain: “Oopsie.” As for the U.S. Supreme Court order for the return of Ábrego García, he dismissed it, even joking that he was not going to smuggle a “terrorist” onto U.S. soil.

***

Following are more updates on the situation of the Abrego-Garcia and the 238 Venezuelans:

Lawyers say El Salvador blocks access to detained Venezuelans - Reuters -- "Lawyers challenging the incarceration in El Salvador of more than 200 Venezuelans deported by the U.S. said the Salvadoran government is denying the prisoners access to attorneys and contact with the outside world...The lawyers said they have not been able to visit, speak to or learn about the whereabouts and conditions of their clients, whose identities they have gleaned through leaked information."

Judge says Justice Department must provide details of attempts to return wrongly deported man - Washington Post - "A federal judge on Tuesday said she will require Trump administration officials to produce in-depth details about the U.S. government’s attempts, or lack thereof, to return a Maryland resident who was apprehended by immigration authorities and wrongly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The decision from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to require documents and written explanations marks another escalation in the legal showdown with the White House."

Although White House officials have repeatedly tried to label Abrego Garcia a gang member and a terrorist, they have failed to provide any proof of these allegations. (FYI -- just because multiple people say it loudly and obnoxiously in a meeting in the Oval Office does not make it true).  In contrast, journalists and his lawyers have shared the evidence which portrays Abrego Garcia as a man lacking any criminal record, who is raising three children with his US citizen wife and has a job after fleeing from gang violence in El Salvador.

Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man ICE mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison? - AP - "Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records. Trump administration officials said he was deported last month based on a 2019 accusation from local police in Maryland that he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said. Later in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family. "

Trump’s Case Against Man Deported in “Error” Just Took Another Big Hit - TNR -- "But the administration’s case that Abrego Garcia is a gang member and violent criminal is running into more trouble. The Maryland police officer who formally attested to Abrego Garcia’s supposed gang affiliation in 2019—when he was detained the first time—was subsequently suspended from the force for a serious transgression: giving confidential information about a case to a sex worker."


Comments

Post a Comment