The Washington Post is out with a story raising questions about a deal struck by Marco Rubio with El Salvador's president. During a March 13 phone call in which Rubio sought permission to send deported Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison, the Post reports that President Nayib Bukele made an unusual request in return: He asked the US to return nine MS-13 gang leaders in American custody. It was unusual because some of those men were informants and thus had US protection, but Rubio made what the newspaper describes as an "extraordinary pledge" to have their deals rescinded.
Critics say the arrangement undermined years of work in apprehending the men. "The deal is a deep betrayal of US law enforcement, whose agents risked their lives to apprehend the gang members," Douglas Farah, a US contractor who worked with federal officials to investigate and help dismantle the MS-13 gang, tells the newspaper. "Who would ever trust the word of US law enforcement or prosecutors again?" So far, only one of the men has been sent to El Salvador. The edge for Bukele is that he would gain custody of men who might expose his own deals with the gang, per the newspaper.
The State Department shrugged off the criticism. The Trump administration's success "speaks for itself," spokesman Tommy Pigott tells the Daily Beast. "Hardened ... gang members are back in Venezuela. … MS-13 gang members are being prosecuted in the US and El Salvador. And Americans are safer as a result of these incredible efforts."