2024-07-22 16:17:03
Republican U.S. lawmakers on Sunday thanked El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, for imprisoning and preventing thousands of “murderers” from reaching the United States, contrary to a recent rebuke by Donald Trump regarding Salvadoran immigration policy.
“Many of the people held here would have gone to the United States and attacked Americans,” said Florida state representative Matt Gaetz from the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), 74 km southeast of San Salvador.
Gaetz is leading a mission of four Republican congressmen who met with Bukele on Friday and, according to a video released by the president on his X account, visited Cecot, where thousands of gang members are held.
“We, the people of the United States, are grateful for the state of emergency and for the existence of Cecot so that these criminals do not do more harm to the Salvadoran people or the people of the United States,” Gaetz added in the video.
On Friday, former President Trump told the Republican National Convention that crime in El Salvador and Venezuela is on the decline “because they are sending their killers to the United States.”
The Salvadoran president, who has shown sympathy for Trump and attended the main meeting of conservatives in the United States in February, has not yet commented on the Republican presidential candidate’s statement.
In March 2022, Bukele launched a “war” against gangs and declared a state of emergency, which has been questioned by human rights organizations because it allows arrests without a court order. Many gang members have fled the country in the face of the offensive.
Gaetz said that the gang members held in Cecot are not committing “homicides” or “robberies,” so the Salvadoran president’s security policies must be “replicated so that other people have security, hope and prosperity.”
© Agence France-Presse
