Donald Trump’s prospective attorney general, Matt Gaetz, sees some value in El Salvador’s hardline approach to violent crime.
In footage unearthed by CNN but originally released by El Salvador President Nayyib Bukele, Gaetz is seen visiting the country’s prison facilities and discussing what Americans can learn from them.
While left-wing activists cry about alleged human rights violations, Bukele’s mass incarceration of violent criminals has led to remarkable results.
Once a hotbed of crime and gang violence, murder rates have fallen by over 95 percent, and the country’s economic prospects look brighter than ever.
Gaetz, recently traveled to the Central American country and commented on their law and order reforms.
He explains in the video:
I’m Congressman Matt Gaetz from Florida, and I serve on our committees in the Congress that deal with the military and our justice system. The people in the United States of America are very grateful for the State of Exception, and we’re grateful that CECOT so that these criminals are not harming the people of El Salvador or harming the people of the United States.
A lot of the people behind me would have found a way to make their way to the United States and harm Americans, and we are grateful to President Bukele and his administration for establishing security and the State of Exception and for all the good work that the people do here to keep everyone else safe.
El Salvador is a country on the rise because people are safe and they are hopeful and they will be prosperous and they will grow great families and great churches and great businesses.
And all of that is possible because the people here are not committing the murders and committing the rapes and the robberies and all the things that stop a strong country from standing up and fulfilling its great destiny. In past years, I think the United States Congress has been too willing to lump El Salvador in with Honduras and Guatemala on our policies.
And we formed the El Salvador Caucus because El Salvador deserves its own respect. It deserves its own relationship directly with the United States that isn’t colored by what else is going on in Central America or with your neighbors.
We think the good ideas in El Salvador actually have legs and can go to other places and help other people be safe and secure and hopeful and prosperous. There is a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States.
And there are a lot more murderers here. The people here have been doing a lot of killing. In the United States, you get a mix in prison of people who have done a variety of things, but this is a concentrated effort to solve what was a terrible problem for the people of El Salvador. And so this is the solution.
The solution is to separate the killers from the people who want to grow in their life and do more things for their neighbors and for their country.
US Congressmen visit CECOT (Center for the Confinement of Terrorism)
Congresistas Estadounidenses visitan el CECOT (Centro para el Confinamiento del Terrorismo) pic.twitter.com/2D0dVoxUza
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 22, 2024
While Gaetz is not suggesting America copy El Salvador’s approach, he highlights the important distinction of separating the most vicious and violent offenders from society.
He also made his intentions clear. Under his leadership of the U.S. Department of Justice, violent criminals should be very, very afraid.
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