During a meeting at the White House on April 14, 2025, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele advised former U.S. President Donald Trump to tackle America’s crime problems using his successful anti-gang strategies from El Salvador. Bukele, who transformed his country from being called the “murder capital of the world” to one of the safest in the region, suggested Trump should similarly “liberate” 350 million Americans by being tough on criminals instead of releasing them. The two leaders discussed cooperation on deporting gang members to El Salvador’s high-security prisons. This meeting came as Trump continued criticizing the Biden administration’s more lenient border and crime policies.
“We know your country has problems with crime and terrorism, and even though we’re a small country, we can help,” Bukele said. “Our country used to be known as the murder capital of the world — that’s what reporters called it — but now it’s the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”
“I like to say we’ve actually freed millions of people,” he added, which got a positive reaction from Trump.
Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate,” Bukele told Trump. “You cannot just, you know, free the criminals and think crime is going to go down magically, you have to imprison them so you can liberate 350 million Americans that are asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorism, and it can be done.”
The Trump administration has been coordinating with Bukele on deportation flights, sending hundreds, including alleged Tren de Aragua gang members, to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
Trump’s 2024 campaign was critical of the Biden administration’s catch-and-release border policies, as well as liberal bail reform laws in many Democratic jurisdictions that forced police to release suspects back onto the streets, often to reoffend.
Trump on Monday derided the “Democratic establishment,” championing how the country would now be run by “common sense” after his election. That’s abuse of a woman,” Trump agreed. “But we have people that fight to the death because they think men should be able to play in women’s sports.”
A decade or so ago, Bukele said, the women’s rights movement pushed to have laws on the books to prevent men from abusing women, arguing that now the “same people are trying to backtrack.” “We’re big on protecting women,” Bukele said, noting that most of his Cabinet members present in the Oval Office with him are women, and joking, “they’re not DEI hires or anything.”
Trump championed women in his own Cabinet, naming Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. “The most powerful woman in the world, according to magazines,” Trump said of Wiles. “I think she probably is.”
Noem, who visited the CECOT last month, thanked Bukele for his partnership, saying Trump has sent a “powerful message of consequences” to keep criminals, rapists, murderers, gang members and terrorists out of the U.S.
Trump said the Biden administration allowed people to “come freely into our country” from South America, Africa, Asia and “rough parts of Europe,” claiming many of those entering came from prisons and mental institutions, as well as gangs.
“This was allowed by a man who — what he did to our country is just unbelievable,” Trump said of former President Joe Biden. “So we’re straightening it out. We’re getting them out. But what they did and what that party did to our country, open borders, anybody could come in. As soon as I heard that, I said, ‘every prison is going to be emptied out into our country.’ That’s what happened. And we’re straightening it out.”
Asked how many illegal immigrants his administration would export to El Salvador, Trump said, “as many as we can get out of our country that were allowed in here by incompetent Joe Biden through open borders.”
