Rich Valdés: You know, doctor, I remember that about 10 or 15 years ago, more people were dying in El Salvador than anywhere else in the world that wasn’t at war. And those were horrible numbers. Seeing what President Bukele has achieved in his four or five years in office seems remarkable to me. What’s your opinion?
Maria Herrera Mellado: Absolutely. Bukele changed his country, and now he’s willing to cooperate with Trump. This case is very special because this immigrant won a suspension of deportation—which is a stay of removal in U.S. Immigration Court. And the government acknowledged that maybe they made some administrative mistakes, but things are getting pretty tough.
I was talking about this on a Venezuelan radio station and said that I don’t see the U.S. or any other country bringing immigrants back, even if there was a mistake—and that’s exactly what’s happening. Especially because Bukele understands that this is a citizen of El Salvador. So, you could see something happen if he was wrongfully deported or if he’s in El Salvador—they’re not going to do anything, because they’re clear on what they need to do to stop this madness of people joining gangs and then entire families being torn apart.
They have hundreds, thousands of citizens being murdered in their nation. And we saw that during the Biden administration. We saw the trend: people assaulting police officers in New York, people killing young Americans. So, if the government makes a mistake, you might see some administrative relief—but something like bringing back a citizen from another country? Bukele said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” And Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pam Bondi said, “He’s a citizen of El Salvador. We’re not bringing him back. He’s not bringing him back.”
Unfortunately, immigration—the industry—is full of contradictions. And we have a large group of people who believe that immigrant rights are more important than national security. And under Trump, that’s not going to be the case. He made that clear, and people voted for him.
