Salvadoran Catholic leader urges Bukele not to turn country into U.S. prison

Source: CBS News/AFP

April 20, 2025 / 6:11 PM EDT


El Salvador's top Catholic leader on Sunday urged President Nayib Bukele not to turn the country into a Guantanamo-style U.S. prison, after Bukele made a deal with Washington to house deported migrants from the United States in a notorious jail.

"We ask that our authorities not allow our country to become a big international prison," Jose Luis Escobar, the archbishop of San Salvador, told reporters on Easter Sunday. Bukele's visit Monday to the White House confirmed his growing alliance with like-minded President Trump.

The Salvadoran leader has agreed to imprison hundreds of migrants, many of them Venezuelans, expelled by the United States. They are being held in an enormous mega-prison where rights groups have decried conditions as inhumane. Escobar mentioned recent opinion articles warning that "El Salvador could become a new Guantanamo" — the sprawling Cuban territory leased by the United States to serve as a naval base.

In recent decades it has seen use by Washington as a prison for detainees accused of terrorism but held without trial and for expelled migrants. Several of those expelled to El Salvador were first jailed in Guantanamo.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jose-luis-escobar-el-salvador-nayib-bukele-us-prison/