Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old Venezuelan makeup artist, came to the United States last year seeking asylum based on his political views and persecution he faced due to his LGBTQ identity. He has two crown tattoos on his wrists symbolizing his Catholic faith and love for his parents. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents interpreted his tattoos as “proof” of his membership in the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and took him into custody last May. Following months in a U.S. detention center, Hernández Romero was one of the 261 individuals recently deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a rarely used wartime law that the Trump administration has invoked to justify deportations on national security grounds. Officials alleged that the deportees were members of Tren de Aragua or MS-13, two groups newly designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
Yet innocent asylum seekers like Hernández Romero, with no proven ties to such groups, are being deported without any form of due process. In El Salvador they are being held in President Nayib Bukele’s notorious maximum security prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Reporting by The New York Times “found little evidence of any criminal background—or any association with the gang—for most of the men.” An investigation by 60 minutes found that 75 percent of the men had no criminal record.
Hernández Romero’s parents have had no contact with their son since March 14. His pro bono immigration attorney was informed that he had been deported to El Salvador only after Hernández Romero failed to appear for a hearing on his asylum case. These deportations violate longstanding asylum laws and international human rights protections.
Legal Protections Against Deportation
In the United States, any person who has experienced persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution in their home country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group (PSG) may seek asylum. A common example of a PSG is LGBTQ identity, which formed part of the basis for Hernández Romero’s asylum claim.
Yet even convicted criminals have legal protections to withholding or deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
If someone has been convicted of a “particularly serious” crime, they may be barred from asylum in the United States. Yet even convicted criminals have legal protections to withholding or deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which prevents that person from being deported to a country where they would likely face torture. CAT is based on the principle of non-refoulement, a fundamental doctrine of international human rights law. As stated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status.”
The harrowing conditions in CECOT faced by those recently deported to El Salvador violate the principle of non-refoulement. Moreover, by designating criminal gangs as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and using tattoos as evidence of affiliation, the Trump administration is bypassing longstanding legal protections.
A Safe Third Country?
While recent developments are unprecedented, efforts to establish El Salvador as a “Safe Third Country” (STC) go back to 2019. During the first Trump administration, the U.S. government established Asylum Cooperation Agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. STC is a legal mechanism that dictates that asylum seekers traveling through a third country are obligated to seek protection there instead of continuing onwards. Essentially, it shifts the burden of responsibility for protecting refugees and can be used as grounds to reject an asylum claim. While the agreement with El Salvador was signed later and not fully enforced until the end of the Trump administration, this effort significantly undermined the U.S. asylum system and exposed vulnerable groups to increased danger.
Yet if proposals to classify El Salvador as an STC weren’t problematic enough, the new Trump administration now seems determined to deport anyone—including those with pending asylum cases and protected status already—to be imprisoned in horrific and sometimes deadly, prison conditions in El Salvador.
The Bukele-Trump Alliance
In February, newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Bukele in El Salvador. In addition to offering to accept deportees from the United States, Bukele offered to house U.S. prisoners in El Salvador on a for-profit basis. “No country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this,” Rubio remarked at the time. Bukele has been described as Central America’s Trump, and the two leaders have long claimed publicly to be fans of one another.
On March 31, officials from the Trump administration admitted to “accidentally” deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was granted protected status in 2019. Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador in 2011 at the age of 16 due to fears of gang violence. Now, separated from his wife and young child who are both U.S. citizens, he’s imprisoned in the very country he sought refuge from, held initially in a brutal mega prison that was created to house the same gang members Garcia fled from. He has since been transferred to a different facility in el Salvador.
On April 10, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the United States. It did no such thing.
Conveniently for the Trump administration, Bukele has stated that he has no intention of releasing Abrego Garcia or other ‘terrorists’ deported from the United States.
Days later, on April 14, Bukele again met with Trump at the White House, the two authoritarian leaders embracing like old friends. When asked about Abrego Garcia during the televised meeting, U.S. officials stated that only El Salvador has the power to decide whether to release him or not. Conveniently for the Trump administration, Bukele has stated that he has no intention of releasing Abrego Garcia or other “terrorists” deported from the United States. By shifting responsibility to the Salvadoran government, the Trump administration is violating court orders and undermining democratic checks and balances.
Salvadoran Prison Conditions
El Salvador’s government declared a State of Exception in March 2022, which suspended constitutional rights to combat gang violence. Initially a temporary security measure, it has become a long-term Bukele government policy. Human Rights Watch and other watchdog groups report that the State of Exception has led to the spread of human rights violations, including mass arrests without evidence, enforced disappearances, and detainees being held without due process. This approach led to severely overpopulated detention facilities where violence is rampant and detainees often lack basic medical care and legal protections. As of December 2024, these brutal conditions had resulted in an estimated 349 deaths in Salvadoran prisons since the start of the State of Exception.
The director of El Salvador’s prison system, Osiris Luna, is implicated in corruption and gross human rights abuses. Luna is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Magnitsky Act, which penalizes foreign government officials that are known human rights offenders. He is also on the U.S. State Department’s Engel List, a catalogue of “individuals who have knowingly engaged in acts that threaten democratic processes or institutions, engaged in significant corruption, or obstructed investigations of such acts of corruption.”
Conditions in Salvadoran prisons are so bad that the United States historically avoided funding them as doing so would violate the Leahy Law, a law that prohibits the U.S. government from providing military and financial assistance to foreign governments that are known to be committing gross violations of human rights. Yet now, the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million in exchange for taking and detaining deportees like Abrego Garcia and Herández Romero.
Violence Against Public Figures
Beyond the inhumane conditions in Salvadoran prisons, El Salvador has alarming levels of targeted violence against groups who are protected under U.S. asylum laws, including frequent killings based on political opinion, religion, and LGBTQ identity.
The Violence Against Public Figures (VAPF) project is tracking lethal violence against public figures in Central America over a 15-year period, from 2008 to 2022. The project compiles data on politicians, political candidates, religious figures, activists and community leaders, judicial officials, and members of the media. Preliminary findings from the VAPF dataset show that there were at least 125 recorded killings of public figures in El Salvador between 2008 and 2022. Activists are the most frequently targeted category; these individuals often advocate for social justice causes and represent marginalized groups, including religious communities, environmental defenders, LGBTQ individuals, and union leaders.
VAPF also occurs in the Salvadoran carceral system, which is now being subsidized by the United States. Mario Davis Arias Rivera, an Evangelical pastor and director of a private Christian college, was arrested in May 2022 while dining with other church members; a few weeks later, he died in custody after being denied necessary medications.
Similarly, José Bonilla, a union leader who worked for the mayor’s office in the capital district of Mejicanos for 17 years, was arrested under the state of exception in September 2022 despite having no criminal ties. He died in custody a few months later. As of 2024, no investigations into his death had been opened, though reports suggest he died violently.
Bukele’s authoritarian tactics have contributed to a generalized climate of fear and polarization.
Bukele’s authoritarian tactics have contributed to a generalized climate of fear and polarization. While overall violence has declined in El Salvador under Bukele’s rule, VAPF remains alarmingly high. On January 31, 2021, armed attackers opened fire on a group of FMLN party members (from the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) following a mayoral campaign event in San Salvador. The attack killed two party activists, Gloria Rogel de Lopez and Juan de Dios Portillo Tejada, and wounded five others. While Bukele suggested the incident was orchestrated by the FMLN for political gain, the party blamed the attack on the “hate campaign” promoted by Bukele and demanded a thorough investigation. Three suspects were arrested: two bodyguards of the health minister and a private security agent.
Ongoing targeted violence in El Salvador—both inside and outside the carceral system—demonstrates that the country is not a safe destination for detainees, let alone asylum seekers.
Violence Against the LGBTQ Community
Members of Central American and Venezuelan LGBTQ communities commonly seek asylum in the United States as a result of persecution they face in their home countries. Yet under the Trump administration, LGBTQ asylum seekers like Hernández Romero now face deportation to El Salvador. This is especially troubling given the targeting of LGBTQ activists and lack of protections for gender diverse individuals in the Salvadoran carceral system.
LGBTQ activists and community members have also been targeted and arrested unjustly under El Salvador’s State of Exception.
LGBTQ activists and community members have also been targeted and arrested unjustly under El Salvador’s State of Exception. The gay activist Juan Carlos Hernández was detained in July 2022 after advocating for the release of his transgender sister Alessandra, who was being held in a men’s facility. In 2019, Camila Díaz Córdova, a trans woman, was violently assaulted and murdered by three Salvadoran police officers. Prior to the attack Díaz Córdova had sought asylum in the United States—before being deported to her death. Her case illustrates both Salvadoran state complicity in LGBTQ violence and hate crimes and the failures of U.S. asylum protections.
Over a six-month period alone between late 2019 and early 2020, at least seven trans women and two gay men were murdered in El Salvador. Beyond rampant levels of impunity for these crimes, the life expectancy for trans women in El Salvador is only 33 years—41 years shorter than the general population—as a result of targeted violence against the trans community.
Cruelty is the Point
Ongoing targeted violence against groups protected under asylum laws and egregious human rights violations in Salvadoran detention centers show that El Salvador is far from being a humane option for asylum seekers. Nonetheless, while the first Trump administration made efforts to designate El Salvador as an STC, the current administration appears to have dispelled that line of justification completely. In fact, cruelty and inhumanity are now clearly the point.
Trump has repeatedly praised Bukele’s tough stance on crime, even recently calling his regime a model for others to follow. The endorsement should not come as a surprise: El Salvador currently holds the highest rate of incarceration in the world, while the United States is among the top five. Between March 31 and April 13, the Trump administration deported another 27 alleged gang members to El Salvador.
While asylum seekers and migrants face the most imminent risks, anyone who resides in the United State should be concerned. After Bukele’s latest visit to the White House, Trump announced he was “actively exploring a proposal to detain U.S. citizens and send them to prisons in El Salvador.”
Laura Blume is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her work focuses on criminal governance and violence in Central America. She is leading the Violence Against Public Figures project, for which she won a 2022 Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award.
Stephanie Sosa and Sol Rodriguez are both undergraduate researchers at the University of Nevada Reno working with Dr. Blume on research related to El Salvador. Given concerns about the risks of retaliation, they are publishing under pseudonyms.