El Salvador: News & Updates

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ vote and new national campaign to support migrants are the group’s first responses to the Trump administration’s crackdown.

In a rare group statement, America’s Catholic bishops voted nearly unanimously Wednesday to condemn the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants as an attack on “God-given human dignity,” and advocated for “meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws.”

“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement,” read the message from the U.S.

Conference of Catholic Bishops. After the vote (216-5, with three abstentions), the bishops stood and applauded. The last such “Special Message” was delivered 12 years ago.

The new message listed the types of suffering the church leaders say many undocumented migrants experience, including “arbitrarily” losing their legal status, being subject to poor detention conditions, and being afraid to take children to school or go to church. “We feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,” the bishops wrote.

Thank you to all who gathered with IRTF on November 9 for our annual commemoration event to mark the 45th anniversary of the sacrifice of four US women missioners in El Salvador. In response to that horrific tragedy, people of faith and conscience in Cleveland founded IRTF as a way to carry forward their legacy—taking action in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized communities as they struggle for peace, dignity, and justice.

IRTF board and staff wishes to thank all the volunteers who helped us set up, decorate, run the event and pack up at the end of the night, Pilgrim Church for hosting us, the kitchen staff at Guanaquitas pupsería for preparing our dinner, Megan Wilson-Reitz for coordinating our social hour (and the many kitchen volunteers!), Salim and Lucía for coordinating our raffle/auction, Pastor Jay for running the tech, and all who participated in the service and speaker program.

To our 46 co-sponsors: Thank you for your financial support that helps us continue calling people into solidarity with oppressed peoples in Central America and Colombia. We are deeply appreciative of your affirmation of our mission and ongoing commitment to this important work.

A New York Times analysis revealed that U.S. military aircraft — including an AC-130J attack gunship, a Navy P-8A surveillance plane, and an unmarked Air Force jet — began operating out of El Salvador’s main airport in mid-October. Their deployment marks a significant expansion of the Trump administration’s military buildup in the Caribbean, tied to counternarcotics missions and potential action toward Venezuela. The move underscores close ties between Washington and President Nayib Bukele and raises legal and political concerns as airstrikes in the region increase with little public justification.

They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours.

One man said officers thrust his head into a tank of water to simulate drowning. 

Another said he was forced to perform oral sex on guards wearing hoods.

Others were shot by rubber bullets.

They said they were told by officials that they would die in the Salvadoran prison, that the world had forgotten them.

“‘You are all terrorists,’” Edwin Meléndez, 30, recalled being told by officers who added: “‘Terrorists must be treated like this.’”

When they could no longer take it, they held a hunger strike. They cut themselves, writing protest messages on sheets in blood.

One detainee, age 26, was so sick that he could not get out of bed, and other men had to feed him. Taken to the infirmary, he was beaten in front of medical personnel. A doctor told him:  “‘Resign yourself. It’s time for you to die.’”

To send the 252 Venezuelan men to prison in El Salvador —along with many Salvadoran nationals—in March of this year, Mr. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping, rarely used 18th-century law that allows for the expulsion of people from an invading nation.

In September, Mr. Trump, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly,  praised Salvadoran officials for “the successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country.”

After President Bukele’s government repealed El Salvador’s historic mining ban, environmentalists fear a quiet return of metal mining—starting with the long-contested El Dorado gold project. Despite official silence, new companies are being registered, land deals linked to mining firms are surfacing, and military presence in affected communities is increasing. Activists report being watched and harassed, even as they continue to fight criminal charges seen as politically motivated. With worsening water shortages and contamination risks, many Salvadorans warn that reopening the mines threatens not only the environment but also their communities’ survival and democratic freedoms.

Late in Trump’s first term, the Justice Department convened the Joint Task Force Vulcan to catch senior members of the notorious MS-13 gang who, from their base in El Salvador,  were directing the organization’s activities in the US (including kidnappings, drug trafficking and murders). Eventually, nine MS-13 gang leaders were taken into US federal custody.

But now President Bukele of El Salvador wants them back.

Why?

The gang leaders have threatened to exposed Bukele’s alleged deals his government made with MS-13 to help achieve El Salvador’s historic drop in violence. It’s also a key step in hindering an ongoing U.S. investigation into his government’s relationship with MS-13.

Early this year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio brokered a deal to make both Trump and Bukele look good. Trump needed a foreign partner to accept deportees regardless of nationality or legal considerations. Bukele, condemned by human rights advocates for curtailment of civil liberties, sweeping accumulation of executive power and oversight of a prison system beset by abuse, needed to ward off threats to his reputation as a crime-fighting visionary (and “the world’s coolest dictator,” as he describes himself).

The deal between Rubio and Bukele granted the Trump administration access to a sprawling foreign prison dubbed the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, that would become integral to Trump’s ongoing efforts to conduct the “largest deportation in American history.”

Read this compelling article based on accounts from dozens of officials from the United States and El Salvador, lawyers representing MS-13 gang members, prosecutors, diplomats, former Justice Department officials and political appointees. The Trump administration’s willingness to renege on secret arrangements made with informants who had aided U.S. investigations has not been previously reported.

Political imprisonment is once again haunting Latin America, with El Salvador emerging as a stark new example under President Nayib Bukele. Once praised for modernizing the country, Bukele has instead refined the authoritarian tactics of the past—using mass arrests, smear campaigns, and the state of exception to silence dissent. Lawyers, journalists, and community leaders who dare to criticize the government now face fabricated charges and indefinite detention. Among them is Ruth López, the renowned anti-corruption lawyer declared a prisoner of conscience after her disappearance and arrest in May 2025.

Behind each detention lies a message: in Bukele’s El Salvador, speaking out has a price. Reports reveal over 430 deaths in custody, families left without answers, and a justice system stripped of independence. As fear drives activists into exile and civic space collapses, international voices warn that the country’s democratic facade is crumbling. Calls are growing for global pressure—from the OAS to the United States—to demand accountability and the release of political prisoners before the last remnants of Salvadoran democracy vanish entirely.