Q24N AFP – A “Guantanamo 2.0” that will bring problems or a favor from which one can take advantage: Salvadorans were divided on Tuesday over the unusual offer by President Nayib Bukele to receive migrants and “criminal” Americans from the United States.
The measure proposed on Monday during the visit of the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was not liked by everyone in the Central American country where the president enjoys high popularity thanks to his “war” against gangs that reduced crime.
“Bukele is trying to cleanse the country of evil and now is he going to bring more criminals […]. It is not possible,” Georgina García, a 60-year-old housewife, told AFP in a square in San Salvador.
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Nearby, while conducting personal business in the capital city center, the sexagenarian former guerrilla Juan José Ordóñez told AFP that “it is wrong” for Bukele to bring prisoners from the United States.
“We do not need him to bring more criminals to this country. Each country should try to figure out how to deal with its own criminals […]. If the United States has its criminals, let it solve it; we have enough social problems,” said Ordóñez.
However, others believe that El Salvador can gain some benefit. Retired sergeant José Alberto Claros said he agreed if Bukele achieves a good deal with the American president, Donald Trump.
If Bukele “makes good agreements that are favorable to our country, such as stopping” deportations and “legalizing our compatriots” in the United States, then the proposal is good, added the 65-year-old military veteran.
On good terms with Bukele, the Trump administration has not yet touched the status that protects some 232,000 Salvadorans in the United States from deportation.
For the director of the NGO Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, Ingrid Escobar, consulted by AFP, Bukele’s offer is an “unconsulted decision.”
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“We are going to become Guantánamo 2.0 (improved) and that is something we cannot tolerate,” she told AFP in reference to the US military base in Cuba where prisoners accused of terrorism have been held.
“With kicks and trombones”
The proposal made to Rubio, whom Bukele considers his “friend,” contemplates hosting the prisoners in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison that houses thousands of gang members and is a flagship in his fight against these groups.
Newspaper vendor Juan Ascencio, 67, said that “if there is money” in exchange for having the criminals, the agreement can work.
Bukele said he will accept the arrival of criminals of “any nationality,” including members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang that operates in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, as well as the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela.
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The proposal contemplates the payment of a “relatively low” fee for the United States, but “significant” for El Salvador, Bukele said.
The country has already suffered with the gangs “so that Colombians, Haitians, Venezuelans, who come from other criminal countries to corrupt this society that is beginning to straighten out with kicks and punches,” said García.
Bukele brought homicides to historic lows in El Salvador with his anti-gang offensive based on a state of emergency that, since 2022, has left some 83,000 people detained.
Human rights groups criticize the regime for allowing arrests without a warrant. Some 8,000 have had to be released for being innocent.
However, Bukele controls Congress and the state of emergency has not faced any legal resistance.
“I think the population would not agree if they were asked if it is right to bring in more dangerous criminals,” Escobar said.
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