How Bukele benefits from accepting US deportation flights: $20,000 per inmate a year and Trump’s favor

In a new production with clear cinematic ambitions, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on Sunday showed the world another video from his mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). In the video, dozens of police officers subdue several men whose hands and feet are bound, put some of them inside armored vehicles and others on buses, and transport them to the prison facility, where other officials shave their heads and dress them in white prison clothes. The most surprising thing is that this time, the new inmates are not just gang members of Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18, the criminal groups for which the prison was originally built, but also — according to the Trump administration’s version of events — alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. And all of the latter individuals were deported from the United States.

The flight, which arrived in El Salvador on Saturday night with 261 people on board, is the first in a deal brokered by Bukele and Trump, and about which almost nothing is known. The only public information available so far is that the Salvadoran president offered to turn the CECOT into an extension of the U.S. prison system in exchange for a payment of $20,000 per individual per year.

The agreement has been heavily criticized in both countries. In the United States, hours before the landing, a judge ordered the government to halt the operation and ordered the planes that were in the air to return, something which did not happen. The Trump administration responded that the notification had arrived when the planes were already flying over international waters. The debate over whether Trump defied a federal court order continues and could reach the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, experts question under what legal process the deportees will be detained in a maximum-security prison.

To send the 261 people to the CECOT, Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a piece of legislation that has been in disuse since World War II. According to some analysts, this could constitute a serious human rights violation, as the deportees were sent straight to a maximum-security prison without trial.

Informal agreement outside of any regulations

Authorities have also not explained what crimes they are accused of. On Monday morning, a White House spokesperson reported that of the 238 Venezuelans traveling on the plane, 137 were detained under the Alien Enemies Act, but the other 101 were deported under a regular immigration law, meaning they are simply accused of entering the United States without legal documents.

This has set off alarm bells for human rights organizations. Juan Pappier, deputy director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), tells EL PAÍS that “there is an obligation under international law that prohibits countries from sending deported migrants to contexts where they are likely to suffer human rights violations. And it seems to me that, in El Salvador’s prison system, these people could suffer them.” “If information about their whereabouts is not provided promptly, we could be facing a scenario of forced disappearances,” he adds.

Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, the leading human rights organization in El Salvador, points out that the Salvadoran prison system is a site of torture and systematic violations of due process. “When the United States accepts the services of this system, it normalizes a prison system that violates human rights,” he notes. “This is an informal agreement between two presidents outside of any regulations, whether of the United States or of El Salvador.”

For Bullock, the agreement breaks with all democratic aspirations: “It’s about two presidents seizing power to decide who is a terrorist and who has rights and who doesn’t.” It’s an idea supported by Pappier. “Bukele can offer the CECOT as a Central American Guantánamo because in El Salvador there is no separation of powers and no rule of law,” he maintains.

What does Bukele stand to gain?

According to the Salvadoran president himself, the government will earn around $6 million a year from the first shipment of deportees alone. This figure, however, falls short of the $200 million a year it costs to maintain the prison system, according to what Bukele himself has said. “The United States will pay a very low rate for them, but a high rate for us,” the president wrote on his X account. “Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates participating in various workshops and work schemes under the Ocio Cero (zero leisure) program, will contribute to the self-sustainability of our prison system,” he added.

But for some analysts, the Salvadoran president’s gains go beyond money: “Bukele gains at least four things: public money, the favor of the Trump administration, the validation of his prison model, and I fear he’s also trying to gain the silence of the MS-13 [Mara Salvatrucha gang] leaders,” Pappier asserts.

Among the men deported on Saturday, the United States included 23 MS-13 members wanted by the Salvadoran justice system, including two gang leaders. One of them is César Humberto López Lario, alias “Greñas de Stoners,” a member of the Ranfla Nacional, the high command of the criminal structure. Until a few days ago, this gang member was facing trial in an East New York court and was mentioned in a case in which U.S. authorities are investigating the Bukele administration’s negotiations with the gangs. Some experts suggest, in this regard, that the president is seeking to bring back the gang leaders from the United States to prevent them from testifying in court about their alleged secret pacts.

Luis Enrique Amaya, a consultant and security expert in El Salvador, believes that, in addition to money, the president is also seeking influence in the Trump administration and maintaining his image as a role model: “He wants to sell himself to the world as a country with a truly strict and rigorous prison system; that’s much more beneficial to him than money,” he says.

For now, the first challenge facing the agreement between the two presidents is whether it can be sustained; whether the United States can continue accelerating deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, something that a judge has so far blocked; and whether El Salvador can continue receiving them without any current legislation permitting such a move.

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