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Three years ago, Nayib Bukele, the president-cum-dictator of El Salvador, had a message for American lawmakers: “OK boomers … You have 0 jurisdiction on a sovereign and independent nation. We are not your colony, your back yard or your front yard.” But since then, it seems he’s had a change of heart.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration deported more than 200 immigrants to a prison in El Salvador, defying a federal judge’s order to halt the flights. The move is part of the administration’s attempt to speed up deportations, invoking the legally questionable but definitely outdated Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Set aside, if you can, the executive overreach and suspension of constitutionally guaranteed rights, and a troubling picture still emerges. A foreign government is incarcerating hundreds of immigrants on the United States’ behalf, in a country most have never set foot in.
Why El Salvador? Well, it offered.
“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele wrote online in February, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to San Salvador. America is indeed the land of opportunity. Video footage, posted by Bukele on March 16, shows the immigrants arriving at a Salvadoran mega-prison. The men are manhandled by prison guards and have their heads shaved. In response to the federal judge’s order, Bukele responded like an internet troll instead of a head of state. “Oopsie … Too late 😂,” he wrote on X.
There are many reasons to be worried: the documented human rights violations in El Salvador’s prison system, the suspension of due process, and the dismantling of an already broken immigration system. But despite how egregious this latest move is, it is part of a larger trend, one Bukele’s government has encouraged. The United States’ interests are being prioritized over the well-being of the Salvadoran people. Trump wants Canada to be the 51st state. If Bukele has his way, El Salvador will be No. 52.
Bukele has repeatedly sold out his people—and received pretty good press in the process. In 2021 he made Bitcoin legal tender nationwide, and though the experiment has largely been a failure, it has attracted crypto bros and tech opportunists. (Elon Musk and Bukele are shameless fans of each other.) He has proposed a number of initiatives to make foreign investment in El Salvador easier: a law expediting citizenship for foreigners willing to donate Bitcoin, thousands of “free passports” for skilled workers looking to immigrate, tax exemptions primarily aiding business based outside the country.
None of these initiatives is for the benefit of people living in La Libertad, San Vicente, or La Union. In fact, they often shoulder the burden—as in the case of Bitcoin City, the peak embodiment of Bukele’s dreams of a “tax-free economic hub.” As Camilo Freedman reported for the Guardian, hundreds of families have been displaced by construction. Mangrove forests, which sustain ecosystems and provide a partial respite from hurricanes, are at increased risk. Resources are being extracted from the land, and those who will profit most from it would struggle to find the country on a map. This is, fundamentally, how a colony functions.
There is a long, bloody history of American influence over El Salvador. The Salvadoran diaspora in the States—some 2.5 million of us—exists largely because of U.S. foreign policy, namely the millions Ronald Reagan poured into a 12-year civil war. Remittances sustain the country’s economy, making up nearly a quarter of its gross domestic product. Since 2001, the U.S. dollar has been the national currency. Social ills—shared by the two countries but felt most acutely by their poorest and most vulnerable citizens—were jointly created. MS-13, a favorite boogeyman of the Trump administration, originated in Los Angeles and expanded its influence through Salvadoran law-and-order failures and the U.S. deportation machine.
A shared history begets shared problems. The domination of one country over the other has gotten us nowhere. To make life better for people on both sides of the border, collaboration is worth a shot. The U.S. government could try to atone for the many ways it has hurt its neighbors. El Salvador could curtail the corruption that has defined its postwar governments and work to strengthen, not undermine, democracy. Instead, Bukele has chosen to capitulate to foreign interests and gleefully do the dirty bidding of a foreign government, all at the cost of his constituents. (One can almost picture the campaign poster for his unconstitutional third term: Nayib Bukele, taking the neo out of neocolonialism!)
It’s unlikely that Bukele will wake up tomorrow and sell El Salvador to the U.S. for a couple of Bitcoins, but his policies—and dictatorship—are already hurting ordinary Salvadorans. And Americans. And, for good measure, Venezuelans. Though he is undeniably popular, in his country and throughout Latin America, the approach is unsustainable. El Salvador will not survive if it cannot advocate for its own interests. I’ll repeat a Cold War adage I read years ago: El Salvador cannot become another Puerto Rico.
