The New York Times reports:
President Trump will meet with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House on Monday as the administration ramps up its use of a notorious Salvadoran prison for holding migrants deported by the United States.
In Mr. Bukele, who has referred to himself as the world’s “coolest dictator,” Mr. Trump has found a willing partner in a plan for deportations with little or no due process. The removal of the migrants to the prison, known as CECOT, has become a flashpoint in the administration’s attempt to skirt normal immigration practice and the role of the courts in reviewing Mr. Trump’s executive power.
After a surge of gang violence in El Salvador, Mr. Bukele imposed a state of emergency that has yet to be lifted, in addition to directing police and the military forces to carry out mass arrests. Many of the 85,000 Salvadorans who were arrested disappeared into the prison system without trial and without their families knowing whether they were alive.
Read the full article. Last week the State Department declared that El Salvador is safer to visit than countries in Western Europe. Bukele has publicly ridiculed Democrats for objecting to Trump’s deportations.
Trump is hosting El Salvador’s president today even as his administration refuses to ask El Salvador to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison. @alanfeuer https://t.co/y2JDtDgGEx
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) April 14, 2025