Rubio and Bukele to discuss sending suspected gang members from US to El Salvador

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will discuss the possibility of deporting suspected Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador in an upcoming meeting with Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele, according to State Department Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will discuss the possibility of deporting suspected Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador in an upcoming meeting with Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele, according to State Department Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone. “We’re looking to do a new agreement that might include the members of the Tren de Aragua, who will want to go back to Venezuela rather than having to share the prison with the Salvadorean gangs like MS-13. It’s part of what we want to discuss and how President Bukele can help us…” Claver-Carone told reporters on Friday, praising Bukele’s security efforts in recent years. Since taking office in 2019, Bukele has launched a security crackdown in El Salvador, detaining tens of thousands of people on suspicion of gang membership. Once suffering from the highest murder-rate of any country outside a war zone, El Salvador has now fewer murders than the United States according to government figures. But human rights activists say the Bukele administration’s approach is overbroad – new legislation introduced as part of the crackdown allows police to detain citizens without proof. Last year, El Salvador opened a controversial new maximum security prison for alleged gang members, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.