In an effort to suppress El Salvador’s gang violence issue, the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, declared a state of emergency on March 27, 2022, which resulted in the removal of constitutional protections and the deployment of police and military personnel to incarcerate mass amounts of citizens suspected of gang-affiliation.[1] The state of emergency has been repeatedly reinstated and remains in effect today, leading to the country’s current mass incarceration rates.[2] While these drastic measures have successfully reduced homicide rates in El Salvador, the nature of President Bukele’s plans have raised questions about whether it will be sustainable long-term on the path to a more stable and prosperous El Salvador.[3]
El Salvador is no stranger to violence. From the Spanish invasion and massacre of the Indigenous Mayan and Pipil populations,[4] to a violent appropriation of large amounts of land by a heavily armed minority, that still reigns true today.[5] By the late 1800s, Las Catorce (fourteen families) controlled half the land in El Salvador, creating a coffee oligarchy that required the intensive labor of families and children.[6] In the 1920s, the oligarchs continued to take more land and cut their workers’ wages in half.[7] In 1932, the government refused to seat elected members of Salvadorans who protested these disparities, and instead responded with La Matanza (The Massacre), which killed 30,000 people (four percent of the population), most of whom were Indigenous.[8] Military dictators followed one after another as the wealth and land inequalities grew even worse, and by the 1970s, students, labor groups, community members, and religious leaders organized to demand reforms for a more equitable society.[9] They were fired, killed, or “disappeared.”[10] This led to the creation of the Salvadoran resistance military, the FMLN, more commonly known as the guerillas.[11] Violent and economic repression from the government and the wealthy paired with an increased resistance in Salvadoran people, led to a devastating Salvadoran Civil War, from 1979 to 1992.[12]
During this time, more than a million Salvadorans were displaced, many of whom fled to the United States (“U.S.”).[13] As Salvadorans arrived in the U.S., they had little to no money, did not know English, were not provided job opportunities, and it was nearly impossible for Salvadoran immigrants to get government assistance.[14] As they faced discrimination, poverty, and violence, some Salvadorans joined gangs for protection and survival.[15] The two most notorious gangs in El Salvador, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18, originated as self-defense groups in Los Angeles during the late 1980s and early 1990s.[16] These two gangs shared a common phrase when they first developed: “Vivo por mi madre, muero por mi barrio” (“I live for my mother, I die for my neighborhood.”)[17] Gang members remained jobless and became influenced by other gangs in the area and began dealing drugs.[18] As the Salvadoran Civil War continued, these gangs developed more intricate methods of criminal activity and showed increased levels of violence.[19]
In the 1990s, at the end of the Salvadoran Civil War, the U.S. began deporting gang members from Los Angeles back to El Salvador, without informing the Salvadoran government of the deportees’ criminal histories.[20] Thousands of gang members were deported to a highly unstable El Salvador.[21] At this point, there was no governmental infrastructure, and no plan for dealing with increasingly violent gang member deportees.[22] The national police force, barely formed from the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, was composed of the surviving military and guerilla members, who were just previously at war.[23] Reverend Gerardo Mendez, a priest in San Salvador who works closely with at-risk populations, explains, “the deportation of gang members back to El Salvador coincided with a very complicated social environment in the country, in which family life had been broken, financially and culturally.”[24] The lack of government programs left young people to live in a state of abandonment.[25] A lack of job opportunities, extreme poverty, thousands of orphaned children, and guns that were left over from the civil war allowed the gangs to become more entrenched in organized, powerful, and violent criminal activities.[26] Extortion and homicides, particularly femicides, became rampant.[27] Reverend Mendez described the violence as “senseless as it is massive.”[28]
By 2010, El Salvador was consistently ranked among the five most dangerous countries in the world and repeatedly referred to as the murder capital of the world.[29] In 2012, government officials began negotiating with MS-13 and Barrio 18 leaders in prison, asking them to limit their violent activities.[30] Following this agreement, between 2011 and 2014, the homicide rate dropped from 70 homicides to f40 homicides per 100,000 people.[31] However, the negotiation appeared unstable when the rate skyrocketed again to over 100 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015.[32] High levels of gang violence created an “internal displacement situation,” with more than 114,000 people forced from their homes across the country.[33]
Between 2015 and 2020, El Salvador saw a decrease in homicides with a seventy percent reduction in the national homicide rate by 2019.[34] By 2021, homicides had fallen to historic lows, only to increase suddenly after 87 murders were committed during a single weekend in March 2022.[35] In response, President Bukele declared a state of emergency in El Salvador on March 27, 2022.[36] The declaration stated that due to the sudden sharp rise in homicides, it was necessary for the state to implement legal measures limiting certain fundamental rights, suspending constitutional guarantees as outlined in Article 29 of the El Salvador Constitution.[37] Article 29 stipulates that in cases of “serious disturbances of the public order,” the constitutional rights guaranteed in Articles 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 24 of the Constitution shall be suspended.[38] These constitutional rights include the freedom to enter and leave the country, the right to freely express ones thoughts, the right to associate peacefully, the right for detained persons to be informed of their rights, the right to an attorney, and the right to be brought before a competent judge within 72 hours of arrest.[39] The Legislative Assembly just approved its 36th extension of the state of emergency, meaning individual rights for arrestees remain suspended.[40]
The process of mass incarceration began, and over two years, El Salvador has imprisoned 80,000 people, 70,000 more than typically expected.[41] As of December 2024, more than 83,000 people have been detained in extremely overcrowded prisons, operating at over 300 percent capacity.[42] Many individuals have been detained without an arrest warrant, and thousands have been arbitrarily profiled and arrested for factors such as having tattoos, wearing the wrong hat, or living in a poor neighborhood.[43] Over 300 deaths have been reported in state custody, with some linked to beatings, torture, or a lack of proper medical care.[44] Weakened due process rights and elevated sentences raise serious concerns for the detainees.[45]
Mano Dura (Iron Fist) policies like President Bukele’s have been employed repeatedly across Latin America, but they have seldom resulted in lasting security improvements.[46] But two years later from President Bukele’s initial state of emergency declaration, El Salvador has far exceeded expectations.[47] In 2021, the homicide rate was 17 homicides per 100,000 people.[48] By 2022, it had dropped to 7.8 homicides per 100,000 people, and by 2023, it had fallen further to 2.3 homicides per 100,000 people.[49] In 2024, the homicide rate decreased to 1.9 homicides per 100,000 people, lower than that of Canada.[50] President Bukele has maintained and sustained lower rates of homicide in El Salvador by keeping the state of emergency in place.[51] Some political scientists and professors in El Salvador, like Álvaro Bermúdez-Valle, recognize that President Bukele’s approach reflects a willingness among Latin Americans to sacrifice democratic freedoms in exchange for greater citizen security.[52] At the United Nations General Debate, President Bukele proclaimed that El Salvador had transformed from the world’s murder capital and most dangerous country to the safest country in Latin America.[53] President Bukele claims that El Salvador “now has a voice in the world” and has reaffirmed its legitimate right to govern itself by demonstrating the determination to do what is necessary.[54] It is expected that mitigating and punishing crime becomes easier when the state deprives its citizens of individual rights.
President Bukele’s actions have brought up valid and concerning ethical dilemmas. However, in due process jurisprudence, ethical dilemmas frequently arise when balancing individual rights with the needs and interests of the community.[55] Legal and ethical frameworks are required to ensure fairness and protect fundamental rights.[56] These frameworks vary drastically, depending on who is perceiving them and who is imposing them. Even in the past few years, El Salvador’s legal framework has shifted according to its constitutional provisions allowing it to do so.[57] Article 29 of El Salvador’s Constitution provides for the removal of individual liberties in times of emergency.[58] This inherent ethical dilemma frequently arises in the criminal justice system when government bodies attempt to balance the rights of the arrestee with those of the community.[59] Similar ethical dilemmas between the individual and the collective also emerge in public health, social welfare, and research ethics.[60] The extent to which a state can legitimately restrict the liberties of its citizens to serve the common good is constantly in flux.[61] These considerations reflect deep-rooted mistrust of governmental authorities and have historically been a prominent feature of politics and civil culture.[62]
President Bukele has taken extreme measures in El Salvador by repeatedly reinstating the state of emergency that removes constitutional safeguards to protect his people from a history of violence. Some consider these actions inhumane, and others consider them necessary. How you view President Bukele’s decisions and their impact on the people of El Salvador may reflect where you think the balance between individual and collective human rights should sit, as well as the role you believe the government should play in protecting that balance.*
[1] United Nations News, El Salvador: Response to the Rise in Gang Killings ‘Cruel and Inhuman’, (Apr. 5, 2022), https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115562.
[2] El Salvador in English, The State of Emergency was Extended Yesterday by the Legislative Assembly to Continue Fighting Crime (Mar. 5, 2025), https://elsalvadorinenglish.com/2025/03/05/the-state-of-emergency-was-extended-yesterday-by-the-legislative-assembly-to-continue-fighting-crime/.
[3] Amnesty International, El Salvador: A Thousand Days into the State of Emergency. “Security” at the Expense of Human Rights (Dec. 20, 2024), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/el-salvador-mil-dias-regimen-excepcion-modelo-seguridad-a-costa-derechos-humanos/.
[4] Dan Farnham & Deborah Menkart, History of El Salvador, Teaching Central America, https://www.teachingcentralamerica.org/history-of-el-salvador, (the Indian population of El Salvador declined from as many as 500,000 to about 75,000 people during the Spanish conquest).
[5] Id. (Today, 4% of the people own 60% of the land, and 40% of people living in rural areas own no land).
[6] Id. (Today, it is still common for children to begin working when they are six or seven years old).
[7] Id.
[8] Id. (Following La Matanza, the military government banned every vestige of Indigenous culture, including language, traditional clothing, and music).
[9] Id.
[10] Id. (Right-wing death squads began to target religious leaders, one of their slogans was “haz patria, mata un cura” or “be a patriot, kill a priest”); see also the 1989 Massacre of Jesuits in El Salvador and the 1980 Murdered Churchwomen in El Salvador for more.
[11] Id.
[12] Robert Casales, Gangs Born out of Civil War, Factors Leading to the Creation of MS-13 and 18th Street Gang, 2(2) Colloquium: The Political Science Journal of Boston College, 6, 8 (2018) (by 1992, the span of a long and bloody twelve years accounted for the deaths of over 75,000 Salvadorans).
[13] Id. at 9.
[14] Id.
[15] Jasmine Garsd, How El Salvador Fell into a Web of Gang Violence, NPR Goats and Soda (Oct. 15, 205 4:54 PM E.S.T.), https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/05/445382231/how-el-salvador-fell-into-a-web-of-gang-violence.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Casales, supra note 12, at 9.
[20] Garsd, supra note 16.
[21] Casales, supra note 12, at 10.
[22] Id.
[23] Id.
[24] Garsd, supra note 16.
[25] Id.
[26] Casales, supra note 12, at 10.
[27] Id.
[28] Garsd, supra note 16.
[29] Juan David Rojas, The Bukele Model and the Future of El Salvador, American Affairs Vol. VIII, No. 2 (Summer 2024), 153-69, https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/05/the-bukele-model-and-the-future-of-el-salvador/.
[30] Id.
[31] Id.
[32] Id.
[33] United Nations News, supra note 2.
[34] Id.
[35] Rojas, supra note 30.
[36] Diario Oficial, Republica de El Salvador en La America Central, VI, 27 de marzo de 2022, translated from Spanish, https://www.diariooficial.gob.sv/.
[37] Id.
[38] El Salvador Const., art. 29.
[39] El Salvador Const., art. 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 24.
[40] El Salvador in English, supra note 3.
[41] Álvaro Bermúdez-Valle, Bukele’s Prisoners, Latinoamérica21 (Oct. 3, 2024), https://latinoamerica21.com/en/bukeles-prisoners/.
[42] Amnesty International, supra note 4.
[43] Latin America Working Group, 2do Año de Estado de Excepcion, (last visited Mar. 7, 2025) https://www.lawg.org/2nd-year-of-state-of-exception/.
[44] Amnesty International, supra note 4.
[45] See id.
[46] Rojas, supra note 30.
[47] Id.
[48] Id.
[49] Id.
[50] Id.
[51] See id.
[52] Álvaro Bermúdez-Valle, supra note 42.
[53] Nayib Armando Bukele, President of the Republic of El Salvador, Addresses the United Nations General Debate of the 78th Session, in New York (Sep. 19, 2023), United Nations YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srO0T3FfyrY.
[54] Id.
[55] Cf. Ilan Fuchs, Law vs. Ethics: The Debate Over What’s Legal and What’s Right, Security and Global Studies Blog, American Public University, Dec. 23, 2024, https://www.apu.apus.edu/area-of-study/security-and-global-studies/resources/law-vs-ethics/.
[56] Cf id.
[57] See El Salvador Const., art. 29.
[58] See id.
[59] Cf. Eval Ahorani et al., 6 Ethical Implications of Neurobiologically Informed Risk Assessment for Criminal Justice Decisions: A Case for Pragmatism, Neuroscience and Philosophy (MIT Press 2022), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK583716/.
[60] Ronald Bayer, The Continuing Tensions between Individual Rights and Public Health, PubMed Central, Dec. 2007, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2267241/.
[61] See id.
[62] Id.
* Note: I, Brook Langmaid, am personally concerned about what President Bukele’s plan means for Salvadorans. However, while my concerns are valid and shared, I recognize this is a complex and layered topic. My intention was to address two perspectives: (1) those condemning Bukele’s actions, frequently heard from international organizations; and (2) those supporting Bukele’s actions, voices that are not as amplified in the media but have been shared by the people of El Salvador, who have experienced a safe home for the first time. These are by no means rigid or binary perspectives, there are many Salvadorans who condemn Bukele’s actions, as shared, and there are international organizations who support Bukele’s actions as well. These are broad overstatements of perspectives I have frequently heard. I wanted to utilize this platform to shed light on this topic, provoke individual thought, amplify minority voices, and express international human rights concerns.
