Overview

Background

Bukele's father, Armando Bukele Kattán, is a businessman of Palestinian origin and a prominent leader within El Salvador's Muslim community. In 1999, Bukele established an advertising company and worked at another owned by his father, with both companies advertising election campaigns for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). That early association with the left-wing FMLN did not last. In 2012, he joined the FMLN and was elected mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, and then won the 2015 election as Mayor of San Salvador, where he served until 2018. After falling out with the party, Bukele founded his own political party, Nuevas Ideas, in October 2017.

Bukele ran for president as the candidate of the Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA), having been barred from running under his own new party. He won decisively in 2019. His governing style from the start reflected an instinct for power consolidation. In May 2021, he used his legislative supermajority to fire and replace five judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General. Since 2022, El Salvador has been under an emergency "state of exception" that suspended constitutional rights, enabling a sweeping mass incarceration campaign against suspected gang members. Homicide rates dropped dramatically as a result, giving Bukele a foundation of genuine public support that has insulated him from most democratic criticism at home.

In the February 2024 election, Bukele won re-election with an overwhelming 84.65 percent of the vote, despite a constitutional provision widely read as prohibiting consecutive terms. El Salvador's top court, which is filled with Bukele-backed judges, ruled in 2021 that it was the leader's human right to run again. His party, Nuevas Ideas, also retained its legislative supermajority.

Public Role in the Second Trump Administration

The CECOT Deportation Deal

In March 2025, a sweeping immigration crackdown under President Trump led to hundreds of individuals being deported from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador known as CECOT, behind a deal worked out between Trump and Bukele. The arrangement moved quickly. After Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador, Bukele offered to house illegal immigrants of any nationality facing deportation in the U.S. within his country's prison system in exchange for a fee.

In 2025, CECOT drew international attention following reports that the United States had deported individuals directly to the prison under the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime law. The move, part of a broader agreement between the United States and El Salvador, raised questions about legal procedures, international detention practices, and the role of mega-prisons in contemporary security policy. The deportations followed invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which had previously been used only three times in U.S. history. In this case, the administration stated that members of the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela posed a national security threat and equated their presence to a hostile invasion in order to justify the use of the wartime provision.

In March 2025, the United States deported 238 illegal immigrants from Venezuela, alleged to be gang members, to El Salvador, to be immediately and indefinitely imprisoned without trial and without prison sentences nor release dates. Bukele confirmed that these individuals would be held at CECOT. However, neither the United States nor El Salvador released a list of names or provided evidence supporting those accusations. Later reporting found that most of those deported had no criminal convictions in the United States.

Conditions at CECOT and Legal Challenges

Inmates at CECOT are denied access to legal representation, stripped of their identity, denied family visitation, and subject to mass trials. The entire facility operates under tight security and is often closed to outside eyes. Bukele, who built his global reputation on crushing gang violence, became a key partner in Trump's immigration crackdown by offering El Salvador's massive CECOT prison as a destination for U.S. deportees. The arrangement generated sustained legal conflict within the United States. James Boasberg, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled that the government cannot deport anyone under the Alien Enemies Act without notice and a hearing. The most prominent individual case involved Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported to El Salvador and has since returned to the U.S.

Mutual Political Benefit

The arrangement, examined in a documentary produced with the Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, is about more than migration enforcement: for Trump, it supports his hardline immigration agenda by providing a high-capacity prison system willing to take deportees, while Bukele has his own political interest in the deal. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, El Faro revisits allegations that Bukele's government secretly negotiated with gang leaders before later turning to mass arrests when that arrangement collapsed. Under this analysis, the Trump partnership serves in part to crowd out scrutiny of Bukele's own complicated history with the gangs he publicly vanquished. Both leaders have promoted tough-on-crime rhetoric, harsh immigration policies, and the discrediting of the press, while claiming to represent a new form of democracy.

Recent Developments

El Salvador's Congress approved a constitutional reform scrapping presidential term limits, allowing Bukele to seek re-election indefinitely. The changes, fast-tracked by his majority-controlled legislature, also extend terms from five to six years. The measure passed 57 to 3 amid criticism over democratic backsliding. Lawmakers also approved measures eliminating the second round of presidential elections and advancing the end of Bukele's current term from 2029 to 2027, in order to synchronize presidential, legislative, and municipal elections. Combined, the changes effectively guarantee Bukele will remain in power until at least 2033.

The constitutional reform has sparked wide criticism and concerns over democratic backsliding from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and NGOs such as Amnesty International. An opposition member of the Legislative Assembly declared that "today, democracy has died in El Salvador." The Trump administration, by contrast, has remained largely silent on the matter. In August 2025, the State Department released a significantly shortened Human Rights Report on El Salvador that largely bypassed concerns raised by civil society groups, independent journalists, and international human rights advocates.

By mid-2026, El Salvador's ruling party has cleared the way for Bukele's third term. The U.S.-El Salvador deportation arrangement has continued to generate litigation in American courts, while Bukele has used the international attention from his Trump partnership to reinforce his image as a tough and indispensable leader.

Outlook

The July 2025 constitutional reforms have helped entrench El Salvador's executive by removing all presidential term limits, protecting the regime against a decline in Bukele's popularity and new opposition inroads. Bukele — described by some analysts as Latin America's youngest autocrat — could now remain in power for decades. For a significant portion of the Salvadoran population, the tangible reduction in homicide rates and the dismantling of gang territories outweigh concerns about democratic checks and balances, and this "security-first" mandate has granted Bukele a level of popularity that the ruling party reflects.

The durability of the Trump-Bukele partnership depends on factors that remain uncertain. The deportation arrangement has faced sustained legal challenge in U.S. courts, and the underlying financial and diplomatic terms of the CECOT deal have not been fully disclosed publicly. What is clear is that Bukele has successfully parlayed his role as a willing partner in American immigration enforcement into diplomatic cover, reduced external pressure on his democratic record, and a reinforced domestic mandate. Whether that trade proves sustainable — as legal, economic, and human rights pressures mount — remains an open question as El Salvador moves toward its accelerated 2027 election.