A judge wanted to stop it, but Trump got over it. He pushed more than 200 supposedly criminal Venezuelans to El Salvador. There they are detained in a notorious prison.
It was an offer that Donald Trump could not reject. At the beginning of February, US Foreign Minister Marco Rubio traveled to Central America and the Caribbean. At his stop in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele agreed to arrest criminals convicted in the USA in his country. The people affected are to be locked up in a mega prison with around 40,000 places. Rubio said: “No country has ever made such a friendship offer.” And the US government did not allow much time to accept the offer.
During his visit to El Salvador, Rubio described the agreement with Bukele as “the world’s most unprecedented and extraordinary migration agreement in the world”. However, human rights organizations and judges Boasberg disagree: They refer to reports on serious human rights violations in Bukele’s mega prison. But why did the President of El Salvador Trump even make this offer? And what can the detainees expect in the Central American country?
Since taking office as President in June 2019, Nayib Bukele El Salvador has made another country. The six-million-inhabitant state was once one of the most dangerous in the world: in 2015 the murder rate climbed the dizzying amount of around 107 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. The reason for this was the violence of criminal gangs that people often simply killed if they didn’t want to pay protection money. Bukele put his presidency under the motto of combating crime.
The then 37-year-old, who describes himself as the “coolest dictator in the world”, was considered a hopeful-and as such he tried to get a “diplomatic” way at the beginning of his presidency. Observers suspect that bukele met secret agreements with the gangs – called Maras – to combat crime. In return, he is said to have promised better treatment in prisons. In fact, violence decreased: by 2022, the murder rate dropped to 7.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. But peace was not permanent.
On the weekend of March 26th and 27th, 2022 there was 87 murders in El Salvador. What the trigger for the outbreak of violence was not finally developed. In any case, Bukele then explained the war to the gangs and let the parliament impose the state of emergency that continues to this day. Arrestments are possible without an arrest warrant.
Between March and November 2022, around 58,000 alleged gang members were prison. In order to cope with the high volume of imprisoned people, Bukele also ordered the construction of a huge anti-terrorist prison, called Cecot.
The Salvadorian president, who led an advertising agency of his father at the age of 18, marketed the International prison. He had the state press office made high -gloss recordings and martial videos of the incorporation of the alleged gang members in Cecot. Particular attention was paid to the tattoos of the detained, which they allegedly identified as Maras. The Maras had already prohibited their members tattoos years ago in order not to be so easily recognizable.
