In 2019, Nayib Bukele became El Salvador’s president, becoming the youngest head of state in Latin America and its first millennial leader. He was the first president to come from outside the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) or the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) parties in over thirty years. His party, called New Ideas, won a landslide victory in the legislative and municipal elections held on February 28, 2021, giving him control of two of the three branches of government (the executive and legislative branches) and, after the new Bukele-friendly legislature chose five Supreme Court judges, he also controlled the third branch.

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Bukele ran for president on an anti-corruption platform and pledged to tackle crime and unemployment. This sounded promising because the Northern Triangle countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – continued to fight significant corruption. To that end, President Bukele quickly established El Salvador’s own anticorruption commission with the Organization of American States (OAS) called the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES).

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Although Bukele remains incredibly popular with his constituents, many of his actions are reminiscent of the authoritarian leadership of the past, which could potentially threaten El Salvador’s fragile democracy. For instance, he used armed soldiers to intimidate Congress into passing legislation and detained people who violated COVID quarantine in government facilities, then ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling that deemed it unconstitutional. Bukele undermines democratic institutions, circumvents checks and balances, vows revenge on those who oppose him, and claims election fraud without evidence. Hmmm…does this remind you of anyone?

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But the most concerning move is that President Bukele takes pride in showing the world how terribly he treats El Salvador’s prisoners, saying barbaric treatment is imperative in his fight to control the wide-spread gang problem in the country. While it’s true that crime in El Salvador has plummeted – homicides in the country are down 92 percent from 2015 – human rights have equally suffered.

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President Bukele has declared a perpetual state of emergency that allows suspected gang members to be arrested arbitrarily and without due process, and he opened the “Terrorism Confinement Center” that can hold 40,000 inmates. Amnesty International reports that “between the start of the state of emergency on March 27, 2022 and the end of 2023, more than 73,000 detentions were recorded... The penitentiary system faced critical levels of overcrowding, reaching a 300 percent occupancy rate, equivalent to more than 100,000 inmates. This accounted for 1.14 percent of the country’s general population and positioned El Salvador as having the highest rate of incarceration globally. Many detainees reported being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including restrictions on food, water and access to sanitary facilities, lack of adequate medical care, and excessive use of force by prison guards. Women inmates lacked attention to their specific needs, including access to reproductive health services and protection against gender-based violence.”

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In October 2025, Amnesty followed up with this: “More than three years after it began, the state of exception, which has already been extended 42 consecutive times, has established a model that gives the appearance of legality to mass detention without evidence, the suspension of judicial guarantees and the imposition of disproportionate terms of administrative detention.” The criminal system in El Salvador “is used as a weapon to criminalize human rights defenders and to silence critical voices, exposing them to a prison regime that threatens their personal integrity and their lives.”

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Further, “the prison situation in El Salvador continues to be alarming: prolonged solitary confinement, extreme overcrowding, lack of timely medical care and the risk of torture characterize the prison system.”

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With that as the backdrop, the United States is now sending migrants to El Salvador’s prisons, and Bukele wants even more, telling Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he can “house in his jails dangerous American criminals” and accept deportees of any nationality… with the U.S. secretary of state replying that the offer is “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”

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In late March 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the Terrorism Confinement Center – wearing a $50,000 18-karat gold Rolex watch – saying “First of all, do not come to our country illegally: You will be removed, and you will be prosecuted… but know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”