PrairiePundit

 Blaze: Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s failed trip to El Salvador to free Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — an illegal immigrant and MS-13 gang affiliate — from a maximum-security prison reveals a stupid irony. Democrats might have succeeded in transferring him to a neighboring country if they had taken a smarter, subtler approach. Instead, they chose politics. Because this was never actually about Abrego Garcia. It was about attacking President Donald Trump. You wouldn’t know it from the media coverage, but Abrego Garcia was deported legally — under a long-standing court order. Virtually no corporate outlet will admit this, because it undermines the media narrative. On his third appeal, Abrego Garcia convinced a judge that El Salvador wasn’t safe for him. So the court issued a withholding of removal — not asylum, but a directive that he be deported to a country other than El Salvador. Someone in the federal government screwed up and missed this order, and he ended up impri...

 Trending Politics: ... Veteran trial attorney and legal analyst Alan Dershowitz predicted on Wednesday that a federal judge’s quest to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue criminal contempt charges against the Trump Administration will fail. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — placed a temporary hold on President Trump’s ability to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The act, which gives the federal government expanded powers to detain and deport members of foreign criminal or terrorist organizations, was invoked in order to better deal with members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang, which originated in Venezuela and rapidly expanded in the U.S. during the Biden presidency. The judge attempted to order the administration to turn around a flight filled with MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members while it was already in the air for El Salvador, which offered to house TdA members in its supermax prison after Venezuela’s dictator Ni...

 Red State: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, home to numerous Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members deported from the U.S. on Wednesday. Footage of her visit shows Noem inspecting large holding cells and coming face-to-face with some of the more violent illegals deported by the Trump administration. While there, she filmed a short Public Service Announcement in which she warned criminal illegal aliens not to come to the United States. Lest you end up in such a hellish prison. Noem thanked El Salvador and their President Nayib Bukele for a partnership with the United States to bring the terrorists to their country and deliver consequences "for the violence that they have perpetuated in our communities." "I also want everybody to know if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face," Noem says, standing with her back to the heavily tattooed prisoners behind her. "First ...

 Stephen Kruiser: ... The presidential election in El Salvador over the weekend has given the lefty hacks here another case of the populism/nationalism vapors, and it's a lot of fun to watch.  Jon Del Arroz wrote about it for us :  El Salvador gets ready to go to the polls for a historic election today as President Nayib Bukele is poised for one of the biggest landslide victories ever in a country with free elections. In the midst of this, the U.S. mainstream media and some government officials, including “Somalia First” Rep. Ilhan Omar, have threatened to take action to interfere with the election, as it appears they are angry that Bukele has been successful with his nationalistic policies in El Salvador that run counter to the globalist agenda.   Anybody who gets Ilhan Omar's hijab in a twist is A-OK in my book.  American Democrats are big fans of criminals, especially since President LOLEightyonemillion and his ne'er-do-well son have been stinking up the Whit...

 Just the News: Ilhan Omar spats with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele ahead of his re-election "We are HONORED to receive your attacks, just days before OUR election," Bukele shot back at Omar.  I would be very worried if we had your support. Thank you." ... El Salvador was once known as the "murder capital" of the world. One of Bukele's main issues was changing that and making significant reforms, including imprisoning more criminals and allowing the government to crack down more on crime. ... Bukele is credited with reducing crime in El Salvador.  

Power Line: Let’s start by identifying what’s not driving it. The surge in immigration from Central America to the United States is not caused by violence in the countries the migrants are leaving. As Matt Sussis points out in the video below, since 2011 the murder rate has declined significantly in Guatemala and Honduras. It has declined significantly in El Salvador since 2015. Some on the left claim that climate change is responsible for the waves of immigration. Supposedly, it has led to lower crop production, thereby threatening the livelihoods of agricultural workers in Central America. File this claim under “climate change, is there nothing it can’t do?” Sussis observes that, since 2000 crop yields have risen significantly in all three of the countries mentioned above. Thus, as with violence, climate change does not explain the recent surge in migration. What does? The obvious motive for coming to the U.S. from Central America is the superior economic conditions in our ...

Washington Post: MS-13 gang member narrated video of teen’s killing, FBI agent testifies The gruesome video of the attack in a suburban Virginia park was meant to be sent to gang leaders in El Salvador, the FBI agent said. That should make it easier t prosecute those who participated in the murder and it should also potentially lead to the arrest of those in El Salvador who watched it as accessories.  It gives the US an opportunity to break up the leadership of a criminal enterprise.

Gateway Pundit: One-Fifth of El Salvador, Estimated One-Quarter of Mexico Now Living Inside USA If they are so enamored of the American culture, why not export that culture to their native land rather than invite them into the US?   That would at least allow US citizens to own land there and develop the resources of those countries.

AFP/Breitbart: Texas Governor Rick Perry's plan to send troops to reinforce the Mexican border was enough to deter Salvadoran couple Edwin and Sandra, who decided to make a difficult trek through New Mexico instead.  The young couple, who are expecting a baby in six months, are crossing Mexico aboard an infamous freight train known as "The Beast," which tens of thousands of Latin Americans hop on each year to make their way to the US border. Carrying two small backpacks, the pair had jumped off The Beast -- actually a network of trains crossing Mexico from south to north -- to stop for the night at Christ the King, a shelter in the central Mexican town of Apizaco that provides rooms to migrants hoping to sneak into the United States. The couple had been on the road for 18 days since leaving El Salvador, but when they heard the news about presidential prospect Perry's move to send 1,000 National Guard reservists to the already tightly guarded border, they decid...

BBC: The Mexican army says it has rescued 165 migrants kidnapped by a criminal gang at least two weeks ago. The migrants were trying to cross to the US illegally but were taken hostage in northern Tamaulipas state by a gang who demanded cash from relatives. Most of the victims were from Central American countries. The migrants were probably betrayed by human trafficking gangs who were paid to get them into the US, a Mexican government spokesperson said. Instead of taking the group across the border, they handed them over to another criminal organisation that operates in northern Mexico. The kidnappers had been phoning relatives of the victims and demanding further money transfers, said government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez. The operation took place on Tuesday, in the municipality of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, but has only now been reported. The army was alerted to the presence of heavily armed men at a property in the area, said Mr Sanchez. When it stormed the property, it found 165 people, ...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Fidel Castro learned a lot from Chilean President Salvador Allende's failed power grab in 1973. And he used the lessons of that bitter defeat to coach Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to dictatorship under the guise of democracy more than 25 years later. Now Latin America's revolutionaries may be experiencing another setback and this time they can't claim that a military coup removed their would-be dictator. Instead, former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was arrested by order of the Supreme Court and deposed by Congress. And despite enormous international pressure, the Honduran democracy has so far defended its rule of law. Yet far from giving up, Castro protégés are already using what they learned in Tegucigalpa in El Salvador. Central America's most promising free-market democracy is now fighting for its life. Allende got the boot from his military because he had been trampling the constitution. The Supreme Court, the Bar Association and th...

Ken Timmerman: The State Department has turned down an offer by the government of El Salvador to renew a joint drug interdiction program that allows the U.S. Navy to base P-3 maritime search aircraft at Comalpa International airport in El Salvador. The 10-year agreement, which went into force after the Salvadoran legislature approved it in 2000, is set to expire next year. The Office of National Drug Control Policy recently estimated that more than half of the drugs destined for the United States pass through the Pacific corridor patrolled by the P-3 aircraft based in El Salvador. “El Salvador has been our staunchest anti-drug ally in the region, outside of Columbia,” said J. Michael Waller, a Latin America expert with the Center for Security Policy. “This program was very well established. The Salvadoran government wanted to extend it for 10 years, and the State Department said no. What kind of insanity is that?” For many years, Salvador’s former rebel party, the Farabundo Marti N...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán sat perfectly still last week, staring straight ahead, as a Miami jury pronounced him guilty of acting illegally as an agent for Venezuela on U.S. soil. He could be sentenced to 15 years in prison. Yet while Durán showed no emotion in the courtroom, back in Venezuela the intellectual author of his crime, President Hugo Chávez, went bonkers. The problem for Mr. Chávez is that, for almost a decade, Latin American democrats have been accusing Venezuela of violating the sovereignty of its neighbors by supporting the radical left with money and weapons. Mr. Chávez has denied it. Now comes the Durán conviction, which has revealed that sizable financial contributions went from the Chávez government to Peronist candidate Cristina Kirchner in the 2007 Argentine presidential race. For Mr. Chávez, who appears to be still toiling at a number of other similar projects around the region, the bad publicity is devastating. Mr. Chávez...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Latin America has had its share of political instability and economic turmoil in recent years, and both Barack Obama and John McCain promise remedies. Sen. McCain's plans for the region don't come with a price tag. But Sen. Obama's blueprint includes "doubling foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012." Americans may wonder why taxpayer funds should be poured into a bucket as leaky as Latin America if the goal is curing underdevelopment. The region needs secure contract and property rights. If local leaders won't defend those rights, programs like Mr. Obama's $2 billion "global education fund" won't amount to a hill of frijoles . A lesson in this reality is now playing out in El Salvador, where a $77 million investment by Pacific Rim Mining Corp., in one of the poorest parts of the country, has been stalled by the government of President Tony Saca. Pacific Rim says that its El Dorado gold mine will create 500 job...