Donald Trump’s deepening partnership with the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, was on display as the two leaders rejected the idea of returning a man mistakenly deported by the U.S. and locked up in a Salvadoran mega-prison.
Meeting at the White House, they indicated Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia would remain in Salvadoran custody despite a ruling by the Supreme Court instructing the Trump administration to take steps to return him to the U.S.
Trump repeated his interest in sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to Bukele’s prison in El Salvador and said his attorney general was studying the legal feasibility. Trump called Bukele “one hell of a president.”
Few media organizations have covered the rise of Bukele, as closely or fearlessly, as El Faro, founded in 1998 as the first digital newspaper in Latin America.
In 2020, El Faro began publishing a blockbuster investigation that exposed secret negotiations between the Bukele administration and leaders of the MS-13 gang who were imprisoned in El Salvador.
The goal was to reduce violence on the streets and win the gang’s support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges. Some of the MS-13 leaders were eventually released as part of the deal, according to El Faro’s reporting.
It was later discovered that during this period El Faro’s staff was the target of a massive cyber attack with Pegasus spyware. Experts suspected it was a state-sanctioned hack. The Pegasus attack on El Faro was featured in a Reveal episode in September, 2023.
In the run up to Bukele’s meeting with Donald Trump, Reveal host Al Letson spoke with El Faro director Carlos Dada about the emerging security alliance between the U.S. and El Salvador and the controversial deal to send deported U.S. migrants to the country’s notorious Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT).
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