READ THIS FROM ASHA RANGUPPA RE BUKELE EL SALVADOR
* I tried to edit this excerpt to 4 paragraphs, but no matter what I do, I can't successfully delete the first part. The excerpt I wanted to print is below the "share".
https://open.substack.com/pub/asharangappa/p/whats-the-real-quid-pro-quo-with?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Bukele has a running agreement with MS-13, the very gang Trump claims has "invaded" us.
The Freedom Academy with Asha Rangappa
The Freedom Academy with Asha Rangappa
Read in the Substack app
Open app
What's the Real Quid Pro Quo with Bukele?
Hint: It's not about fighting "terrorism," or stopping illegal immigration.
Asha Rangappa
Apr 17, 2025
656
50
243
I’m am co-publishing my notes for CAFE Insider right here on my Substack, so you can get them immediately! Listen to this note and get insights from myself and other legal experts by following The Counsel Podcast from CAFE.
Dear Reader,
I suspect that as a CAFE reader, you have been following the twists and turns of the legal wrangling between the courts and the Trump administration with regard to the mistaken removal and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father and El Salvadoran national whom the government acknowledges was sent to El Salvador as a result of an “administrative error.” Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding a lower court’s order that the administration “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), where he is currently being held (as far as we are aware), the government has continued its kabuki dance of making filings that are pretty much nonresponsive to the court’s demand for more
A non-binding instrument that is or will be under negotiation, is signed or otherwise becomes operative, or is implemented with one or more foreign governments…and could reasonably be expected to have a significant impact on the foreign policy of the United States.
At least once every month, the Secretary of State is required to present to the majority and minority leaders of both houses a list of such agreeme
Share
Enter Bukele. Bukele was elected in 2019, winning on a platform that promised to (once again) “crack down” on gang violence. But his party, Nuevas Ideas, began secretly working to gain the support of a critical group: Yep, MS-13. Bukele and his party negotiated with the gang to bring back the “truce,” which would include (according to the federal indictment) “financial benefits, control of territory, the ability to run the gang from prison, and the early release of gang members.” MS-13 also wanted assurance that they wouldn’t be extradited to the U.S., where they would face more punitive measures. (Having studied the drug cartels in Colombia, this was reminiscent of Pablo Escobar’s mantra, “Mejor una tumba en Colombia, que una carcel in los Estados Unidos” – which means, “Better a grave in Colombia than a jail cell in the United States.”) The same day Bukele’s party received a legislative majority in 2021, it removed the Attorney General and five members of the Supreme Court who had been working with the U.S. to take real action against MS-13. Buekele also released a major MS-13 leader whom the U.S. was seeking for extradition from prison.
In exchange, MS-13 “agreed to reduce the number of public murders in El Salvador, which politically benefitted the government, by creating the perception that the government was reducing the murder rate.” Indeed, Bukele’s popularity is the result of his so-called “Territorial Control Plan,” which involved building his supermax prison and his plan of mass incarceration – a plan which he credits for the drop in violence since he took office. Of course, the citizens of El Salvador aren’t privy to the secret negotiations Bukele made with MS-13 – details that were going to be made public when the U.S. government’s case against the MS-13 defendants went to trial. Which may explain why the Trump administration quietly dropped these charges last week and put the charged MS-13 members on the third plane bound for El Slavador (and which included Abrego Garcia). Among the defendants was one of the highest-ranking leaders of MS-13, Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, who was arrested last June and added to the earlier indictment (and who almost certainly will not face real punishment in El Salvador).
Jesus H. Christ on a raft.
= new reply since forum marked as read
