World

El Salvador’s President Says He Can’t Honor Asylum Deal He Made With Trump

REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
Font Size:
  • El Salvador President Nayib Bukele admitted in a recent interview that his country doesn’t have the infrastructure to carry out an asylum deal it made with the Trump administration. 
  • Bukele, admitting that his country’s economic situation was in “shatters” and noting the high crime rate, said his government doesn’t have the capacity to accept asylum seekers, but pledged to build them. 
  • The Trump administration entered into asylum cooperation agreement with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the three Central American countries that are home to a bulk of the illegal aliens reaching the U.S. border. 

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said his administration is currently unable to honor an asylum agreement made with the White House that aims to control the border crisis and admitted his country is in “shatters.”

Bukele, the 38-year-old conservative leader of El Salvador, readily admitted that his country is incapable of implementing an asylum deal he made with the Trump administration during an interview with CBS News. He noted the tiny Central American nation is wrought with crime and a stagnant economy; however, the former businessman and self-avowed Trump ally pledged he is working to make the deal work.

“The reality is that our whole economy is in shatters, nothing works,” he said during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night. Bukele noted that “100,000” kids grow into working age every year in El Salvador, but they are entering into an economy that only creates 20,000 jobs annually — leaving thousands without work every year. “This is a country with a lot, a lot of problems.”

Making things worse, the Central American nation is plagued with violent crime between gang members. The United Nations declared El Salvador to have the highest homicide rate of any country in the world not at war.

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele speaks during a news conference about the homicide drop in the last month in San Salvador

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele speaks during a news conference about the homicide drop in the last month in San Salvador, El Salvador, Nov. 1, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

These conditions have made it nearly impossible for Bukele to implement an asylum cooperation agreement it reached with Washington, D.C., earlier this year. Under the terms of the agreement, U.S.-bound asylum seekers who pass through El Salvador must first seek protected status there. Migrants who fail to do this would be relocated to El Salvador. The Trump administration has entered into similar agreement with Guatemala and Honduras.

Bukele said El Salvador simply doesn’t have the infrastructure to hold a massive influx of asylum seekers.

“No right now,” he responded when asked if his country was prepared to accept asylum seekers. “We don’t have asylum capacities, but we can build them.”

WATCH:

This roadblock, however, hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from releasing millions of economic aid to El Salvador and other Central American countries, a “thank you” of sorts for their agreeing to the asylum agreements. Hundreds of millions will be divvied up between El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

This does not necessarily mean the White House was given a raw deal. A key part of the bilateral agreement included a provision that the U.S. government help El Salvador bolster its asylum system, meaning the infrastructure could become a reality in the near future.

More notably, it’s not clear that El Salvador would realistically be accepting a huge wave of asylum seekers. The Guatemalan asylum deal, for example, has finally been launched, and so far only a small fraction of those deported from the U.S. have actually opted to remain in Guatemala — choosing instead to go back to their home countries. Out of the 24 who authorities deported in recent days, all but two chose to seek protected status in Guatemala. (RELATED: ‘Concerned For Our Safety’: County Clerk Sounds Alarm At New York Allowing Driver’s Licenses For Illegal Aliens)

Efforts to mitigate illegal immigration from El Salvador have, in fact, shown immense progress. Around 12,000 attempted to enter the U.S in June, during the height of the border crisis. That number tickled to roughly 2,500 by October.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel