Trump to meet El Salvador president at White House amid backlash over deportations
Donald Trump is due to meet El Salvador president Nayib Bukele at the White House on Monday with the small Central American country having become a focus of the US administration’s mass deportation operation.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants – whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes – and placed them inside the country’s notorious maximum-security gang prison just outside the capital, San Salvador, called Cecot, an acronym for Terrorism Confinement Centre in Spanish.
That has made Bukele, the most powerful leader in El Salvador’s modern history, a vital ally for the Trump administration, which has offered little evidence for its claims that the Venezuelan immigrants were gang members, nor has it released names of those deported.
Bukele won a decisive victory in elections last year after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown that transformed security in El Salvador. The alliance between Trump and Bukele “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said yesterday. Trump told reporters he thought Bukele was doing a “fantastic job” and “taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn’t be able to take care of from a cost standpoint”.
US officials said in court filings on Sunday that they were not obliged to help a Maryland resident get out of prison in El Salvador after he was erroneously deported, despite a supreme court ruling directing the government to “facilitate” his return to the US.
Attorneys for the Trump administration said the high court’s order to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego García, 29, meant they should “remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here”, not help extract him from El Salvador.
The Trump administration has acknowledged that García, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was deported in March in violation of an immigration judge’s order blocking his removal to El Salvador.
The White House has admitted that Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”. He was one of the 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans the Trump administration has deported to Cecot – which houses both convicted criminals and those still going through El Salvador’s court system – under an agreement between the two countries.
The case highlights the administration’s tensions with federal courts. Several have blocked Trump policies, and judges have expressed frustration with administration efforts – or lack of them – to comply with court orders.
Bukele’s visit comes days after the US deported 10 more people to El Salvador.
Key events
Georgetown alumni and students call for release of scholar detained by immigration authorities
Michael Sainato
More than 370 alumni of Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).
The letter, dated Sunday and shared with the Guardian, follows the Trump administration’s detention of Khan Suri – a citizen of India – on 17 March. He is being held at an immigration prison in Alvarado, Texas, where his next hearing is scheduled for 6 May.
Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine.
Khan Suri’s wife, who is of Palestinian descent, is a US citizen.
Citing the ideals of the Catholic religious order that founded Georgetown University in Washington DC, Sunday’s letter said Khan Suri’s “persecution represents a fundamental violation of academic freedom, due process, and the Jesuit values that define” the institution. It adds:
We see his detention clearly for what it is: an attempt to instill fear, silence critical thought, and erode solidarity among students and scholars of varying backgrounds and identities. We reject this attempt and demand his immediate release.
The letter notes immigration authorities arrested Khan Suri at his home in Virginia, and it contends that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has provided no evidence to support its claims.
A senior Georgetown official, meanwhile, said the university was not provided an explanation for Khan Suri’s detention. Joel Hellman, the dean of Georgetown’s school of foreign service, said in a statement:
We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.
Sunday’s letter compares Khan Suri’s detention to those of other academic scholars around the US under Donald Trump’s second presidency, including Mahmoud Khalil, Ranjani Srinivasan, and Leqaa Kordia of Columbia University – as well as Rasha Alawieh of Brown University.
