When former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) was getting to know Nayib Bukele, the young Salvadoran president foreshadowed an offer that has since become central to the Trump presidency: “When you need security, call the experts,” the lawmaker recalled him saying with a wry smile.
The country is now holding in one of its most notorious prisons more than 200 men deported by the Trump administration, with the White House fighting in court to send even more.
El Salvador’s emergence as a political stage for American politicians amid tension over Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation — with lawmakers from both parties visiting the country in recent weeks — comes after years of Republicans steadily strengthening ties with the Central American nation under Bukele.
As Republicans embrace El Salvador and its crackdown on gangs with little due process, they denied congressional Democrats access to funding for trips to the country related to the Abrego Garcia case and teased them for wanting to go.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) made headlines for flying to El Salvador and meeting with Abrego Garcia last week, while a group of House Democrats visited earlier this week on their own dime.
Yet a series of Republicans made the trek to El Salvador even before the Abrego Garcia case leaped into public attention or even before Trump returned to the White House.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March filmed a video in El Salvador’s most notorious prison, its Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT as it is known by its Spanish acronym. She warned migrants not to come to the U.S. illegally “or this is one of the consequences you could face,” showing men in the prison crowded into a cell with three-tiered cement bunk beds.
Now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador as a senator in 2023, praising Bukele as one of the “democratic leaders” fighting gangs. And group of MAGA allies — including Gaetz, Donald Trump, Jr., Tucker Carlson, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — attended Bukele’s second inauguration last year, his re-election only possible after a packed court system allowed him to dodge prohibitions on an additional term.
It was a mark of distinction for a Central American country that was previously known for being the murder capital of the world in a troubled region, a reputation Bukele sought to shift with a number of moves, including adopting Bitcoin as the country’s official currency.
Bukele, Gaetz told The Hill in a text message, had “lamented that El Salvador was always getting lumped in with other Central American Countries in the eyes of Congress.”
“He wanted El Salvador to have its own story, its own dignity, and its own relationships with American Lawmakers outside of the ‘northern triangle’ (a term Bukele loathes) geopolitical designation,” Gaetz said, referring to the designation that groups El Salvador with Honduras and Guatemala.
Gaetz suggested creating a bipartisan El Salvador Caucus, to which Bukele responded: “This would mean more to us than any foreign aid the United States could provide.”
The next month, Gaetz launched the El Salvador Caucus, with Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) as a co-chair. The group successfully advocated to lower the travel warning for El Salvador, traveled to tour the CECOT prison, and dined with Bukele.
Gaetz celebrated when earlier this month the Trump administration listed El Salvador as a Level 1 travel country, the same as much of Europe — a huge shift from just a year ago when it was still listed as a Level 3, which advises would-be visitors to “reconsider travel” due to safety risks.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is now the Republican co-chair of the caucus, and touted an invitation she received from Bukele to travel to El Salvador to represent the group.
That trip, she said, will be bipartisan and is happening in the next few weeks. While the timing is “serendipitous,” it has been in the works for a while. It will not be taxpayer-funded, she added.
“Bukele represents a lot of what the populist and also conservative movement in the United States represents, and that is anti-corruption — I don’t want to say anti-establishment specifically — but people that are not a part of the problem,” Luna told The Hill.
Bukele’s tough-on-crime policies and “putting the people first over corrupt politicos,” Luna said, have “changed the country in a very short amount of time.”
Gonzalez said in a statement that he hoped to work with Republican colleagues in the caucus to address issues like migration and economic growth. And while he applauded Bukele for “bringing security to the Salvadoran people,” he warned that the country must “adhere to the democratic values and rule of law standards the international community will respect long term.”
“It would be shortsighted for any leader to succumb to partisan politics of other countries that are only guaranteed to change,” Gonzalez said.
Bukele is a figure who manages to be as controversial as he is popular.
He’s beloved in El Salvador for cracking down on gang violence that ravaged the country for decades.
But in doing so, he suspended much of the country’s due process protections, igniting emergency powers through a “state of exception” that allows for arrests without warrants and detention without a trial. El Salvador has now been under the 30-day measure for three years.
The country has imprisoned over 100,000 people detained in facilities designed to hold 70,000. Its overall incarceration rate now exceeds that of the U.S.
According to Gaetz, Bukele’s offer to take in gang members predates the Trump administration.
“At the time Biden was president, but Bukele offered to take back any MS-13 or other terrorists we wanted to send him. Bukele was rightfully proud of the security reforms in his country,” Gaetz said.
The rapid incarceration of alleged gang members comes as a steep cost, however, for a country where remittances from abroad still account for nearly a quarter of their gross domestic product.
The deportees sent by the U.S. represent an infusion of cash for the country. Van Hollen said the Trump administration has agreed to pay El Salvador $15 million to house the detainees over the next year.
Those dynamics are part of why congressional Democrats have eyed trips to the country, both in hopes of securing the return of Abrego Garcia but also to highlight the risks of a lack of trials or due process for men who will be sent to a prison where the Trump administration has argued it cannot get them back.
“This case is not just about one man, it’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America,” Van Hollen said at a press conference after landing at Dulles International Airport following his hard-won meeting with Abrego Garcia.
The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, but the White House has argued they are only obligated to send a plane should El Salvador wish to release him. Bukele said during an Oval Office meeting that he would not, and referred to Abrego Garcia as a terrorist. Claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang are largely based on a tip one confidential informant gave to police.
Along with Van Hollen, a number of House Democrats pushed for trips to El Salvador — only to have any official travel blocked by two Republican chairmen, having to pick up the tab for the trip themselves. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (Ky.) wrote that it was “absurd” Democrats would want to meet with “foreign gang members,” while House Homeland Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) wrote it would “waste taxpayer dollars.”
But despite slamming Democrats for wanting to take trips to the country, Republicans have done so themselves.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) led a group of seven Republican members in El Salvador last week, posting photos of detainees behind bars. The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador said the members visited “to strengthen bilateral ties and discuss initiatives that promote economic development and mutual cooperation.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called the move hypocritical, particularly after Trump floated sending U.S. citizens to Salvadoran prisons after migrants have been sent there “without any due process.”
“There’s no good faith here. This is a joke to them. This is a heartless joke to them, which is really unfortunate. There have been zero Democrats on these official [congressional delegations] (CODELs) to El Salvador, and so it just shows it’s a completely partisan issue,” he said in response to a question from The Hill after arriving back from El Salvador himself.
“I actually asked to tour some of these facilities as well because Donald Trump was talking about sending citizens there. I want to see where he wants to send U.S. citizens. We were denied that as well because we’re not on an official CODEL. And so… it looks like it’s just the Republicans that are being allowed to go to these prisons and take photos with humans and prisoners and people as the backdrop.”
Luna dismissed concerns about lack of due process in El Salvador under Bukele, comparing criticism he’s received to that MAGA allies endured.
“People like myself, like Rep. Matt Gaetz, and even Donald Trump, Jr., even just a couple of years ago, the way that the media tried to brand us was not favorable. And that’s the same thing that they’re trying to do with Bukele right now,” Luna said.
Gaetz, for his part, is not only invested in El Salvador ideologically.
“I now own a home in El Salvador, and I intend to devote a substantial portion of my post-congressional life to nurturing friendly relations between our countries,” Gaetz said.
The bromance between Bukele and President Trump may just be beginning. After a White House meeting last week, the Salvadoran president posted: “Miss you already.”
