Latest news with #Salvadorans'
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The World Is Finally Seeing How Dangerous President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador Really Is
In May 2020, during the height of Covid, El Salvador was under a military-enforced lockdown. At a news conference, I asked President Nayib Bukele a straightforward question about meeting with the business community about reopening the economy. Mr. Bukele bristled and criticized the founder of El Faro, the news outlet where I work. Afterward, I received death threats from Mr. Bukele's supporters. One that still stands out was written on Twitter by someone outside the country: 'I want to go back to El Salvador so badly and shoot you 3 times in the head so you stop being a fool.' The reaction was typical of a certain strain of Mr. Bukele's followers, who treat criticism of the president as an unforgivable sin. After six years, he is still wildly popular, with a national approval rating of over 80 percent. Much of the diaspora is devoted to him as well. While the idealized version of him — an efficient, eloquent leader who has reduced crime in the country and is committed to fighting corruption — sounds great, the reality is that he is a mercurial and unrestrained politician who controls every institution at the expense of the country's democracy. Now he has become President Trump's jailer, welcoming deportees from the United States to be imprisoned in El Salvador's brutal prison system. Venezuelan and American families, whose loved ones have been sent to these prisons, are now going through what many families here have gone through since Mr. Bukele came to power — feeling the terrifying arbitrariness of his regime, his self-interested way of ruling, his cruelty. Many are now realizing what some of us have warned people about for years: that even if Mr. Bukele has ironically called himself the 'coolest dictator in the world,' he's a dictator nonetheless. The so-called Bukele model of national security is built on thousands of cases like that of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant who was improperly expelled to El Salvador in March. In 2022, Mr. Bukele declared a state of exception — still in effect — to weaken the country's powerful gangs and lower the soaring crime and murder rate. It has also eroded Salvadorans' constitutional rights, and thousands of people with no criminal records have been arrested in a sweeping operation that eventually dismantled the gangs' territorial control and drastically reduced homicides. Since the state of exception began, around 80,000 people have been arrested and imprisoned in El Salvador. Mr. Bukele admitted last year that 8,000 innocent people were arrested and released in the sweep, but civil society groups say the number is much higher. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen ripped apart for admitting his trip to El Salvador was paid for by taxpayers
A Democrat senator who flew to El Salvador last week to visit a deported Salvadoran migrant elicited fury online after revealing that U.S. taxpayers funded his visit to see the detained non-citizen. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., traveled to Central America last week to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, a migrant who crossed into the U.S. illegally before settling down in Maryland and marrying an American woman. The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March because of his alleged ties to the violent gang MS-13, though the White House admits his removal came as a result of an 'administrative error,' and courts have ordered he be returned to the U.S. Amid the controversy over whether Abrego Garcia's deportation was lawful, documents revealing he beat his American wife and was suspected by Maryland authorities to be an active MS-13 member surfaced. Despite the fresh allegations against Abrego Garcia, Van Hollen pressed on with his trip and has been advocating for the Salvadorans' return to the U.S. Explaining his rationale for the visit on Fox News Sunday, the Democrat was asked about whether U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for the multi-day trip to El Salvador. 'Who did pay for this trip?' host Shannon Bream asked. 'This was an officially cleared congressional trip,' Van Hollen replied, initially dodging the question. 'So taxpayer dollars?' Bream pressed. 'Yes, like every other trip,' the Democrat admitted. Shortly after the show aired conservatives began tearing into the lawmaker for using American tax dollars to travel to El Salvador and check on the well-being of a Salvadoran man. 'Van Hollen hates America,' Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., posted on X in response to a clip of the Democrat's admission. 'He should return the money and resign,' Mace's post continued. 'Disgusting misappropriation of your tax dollars.' President Trump's 'Border Czar' Tom Homan also ripped into Van Hollen on Sunday. 'What bothers me more than that is a U.S. Senator travels on our taxpayer dime to meet with a MS13 gang member,' Homan told ABC News. 'What concerns me is Van Hollen never went to the border last four years, when Joe Biden had a 600 percent increase in sex trafficking of women and children,' he continued. 'What shocks me is he's remained silent about the travesty that happened our southern border - many people died.' Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also slammed the senator, telling Fox News on Monday that the Democrat's trip was shameful. 'Shame on Senator Chris Van Hollen and the entire Democrat Party who wasted Easter Sunday going on every television show in the country to advocate for the return of an illegal criminal gang member,' she said. 'There is a litany of evidence proving this individual's ties to MS-13 that has been confirmed in two different courts.'
