In April 2025, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to imprison more than 250 migrants deported from the United States for a renewable period of one year. Prisoners are alleged members of the transnational criminal group Tren de Aragua. The deal, signed with US President Donald Trump, includes the repatriation of MS-13 leaders serving sentences in the United States. In exchange, El Salvador received US$6 million.
This agreement appears to be pragmatic security cooperation, but it hides a more ambitious strategy. Bukele is positioning El Salvador’s prison system as a geopolitical service, one that legitimizes authoritarian rule and generates economic revenue.
The Trump administration has allegedly earmarked a $15 million fund for future prisoner transfers to El Salvador’s mega prisons—especially to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). El Salvador has 25 jails. However, CECOT hosts 30 percent of salvadoran prisoners, given its capacity to host 40,000 inmates under maximum-security conditions.
From Crackdown to Export Model
In his first term, Bukele drew global attention with his militarized crackdown on gang violence. His policies transformed El Salvador from one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas to one of the safest. El Salvador’s reported homicide rate by the end of 2024 was just 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants.
This apparent success story, however, has come at the cost of democratic safeguards. Under a prolonged state of emergency, his administration has bypassed constitutional checks and replaced the judiciary with loyalists. His reelection in 2024, despite clear constitutional prohibitions, cemented his strongman image.
Moreover, in June 2025, the Bukele administration arrested well-known opposition figures: human-rights lawyer Ruth López and constitutional scholar Enrique Anaya. Under his narrative of national security and public order, Bukele is silencing dissent.
However, Bukele ended his sixth year in power with an approval rating of 85.2 percent, according to polling firm LPG Datos. Now, amid his prison diplomacy with Trump, Bukele is tightening domestic control while marketing El Salvador’s penal model abroad.
Authoritarianism as a Business Model
The United States is the liberal democracy with the highest incarceration rate worldwide. With 614 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the United States ranks fifth globally—only behind repressive regimes: El Salvador (1,659), Cuba (794), Rwanda (620), and Turkmenistan (576).
Moreover, US prisons are in crisis. Jails are overcrowded, lack inmate protection, and do not provide rehabilitation. In Alabama, where the most violent jails in the country are located, the US Department of Justice has reported: “homicide and sexual abuse are common, knives and dangerous drugs are rampant, and incarcerated people are extorted, threatened, stabbed, raped, and even tied up for days without guards noticing.”
Since these conditions are contravening the constitutional mandate of protecting incarcerated people, there is growing bipartisan support for criminal-justice reforms. Advocates seek to impose transparency, accountability, protection, and efficient rehabilitation programs.
However, the prison population continues to grow, and the US government needs jails. For migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for instance, Trump revived million-dollar contracts with private-prison operators CoreCivic and Geo Group. In 2021, then–President Joe Biden suspended their operations due to concerns about inadequate conditions.
Seeing opportunity, Bukele has positioned El Salvador not only as a provider of prison space but of a hardline penal system that legitimizes repression and evades scrutiny. This model is even appealing to other governments seeking nimble security tactics and swift outcomes.
Following the deportation of the 250 migrants under the US-Salvadoran deal, legal experts raised concerns about violations of both US and international law. Subsequently, the US Supreme Court ordered Trump to suspend deportations to El Salvador. The Trump administration responded by announcing the reopening of Alcatraz. Similarly, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Ecuador have unveiled plans for their own mega prisons.
Turning El Salvador into a Prison Land
Although countries like the Philippines and some African nations previously proposed incarceration agreements with the United States, none materialized. El Salvador’s approach stands out due to its existing infrastructure, centralized political control, and geographic and diplomatic proximity to the United States.
Bukele is transforming incarceration into a market-oriented international service. This includes not only housing foreign prisoners but also absorbing the political responsibility for their treatment.
The strategy may also serve broader geopolitical goals. It expands deportation options for the United States, especially for individuals from countries unwilling to receive deportees. It could also inspire similar agreements across Central America, reshaping regional cooperation on immigration and criminal justice.
Chilean conservative politicians have expressed interest in outsourcing incarceration of foreign nationals to El Salvador. The Peruvian Congress has introduced a bill to emulate the US-Salvadoran deal by sending high-risk prisoners abroad to curb domestic insecurity.
The Illusion of Security
The global trend of outsourcing incarceration is growing. The 2024 UK effort to deport migrants to Rwanda is a case in point. Future deals may include provisions for housing deportees and criminals from other countries.
However, agreements of this nature may violate international conventions, such as the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly regarding due process and humane treatment.
Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and professor at the Free University of Berlin, warns:
“Instead of improving the overcrowded conditions that plague prisons in many countries, leaders are turning to the illusion that building mega prisons for high-risk inmates will magically solve the growing fear of street crime. Improving prison conditions does not resonate with the public the way a mega prison does. This is a punitive populist strategy that, in many cases, offers a fraudulent solution to the problem of citizen insecurity. A more comprehensive approach is needed to address this complex social challenge.”
El Salvador’s experiment sets a dangerous precedent. It invites the normalization of repression as a service, which could become a censorship and persecution tool if nations lack due process and independent justice.
