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The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, responded to the Colombian leader Gustavo Petro with a defiant offer: to transfer 100% of the Salvadoran prison population to Colombia, following Petro's criticisms of Bukele's security model.
The trigger was a post by Petro on X in which he labeled Salvadoran prisons as "concentration camps for civilians," referencing a report from El País that revealed that 36% of those captured during the state of emergency —more than 33,000 people out of a total of 91,628 detained— were not listed in police records as gang members.
Petro was unequivocal in his criticism: "Having 36% of innocent people imprisoned is a crime against humanity; it is a concentration camp for the civilian population, people detained because they have a tattoo or are young."
The Colombian president also compared the arrests in El Salvador to the so-called "false positives" in Colombia.
"It resembles the official executions in Colombia where young people are killed and passed off as guerrillas taken out, when they were innocent youths, even with mental health issues, picked up from the poor neighborhoods of large cities. That is called terrorism."
Bukele responded with a public letter on Facebook addressed to Petro, recalling that he had already made the same proposal to Hillary Clinton when she criticized the Salvadoran prison system: "To this day, I am still waiting for a response."
The Salvadoran president presented the offer in terms that shift the burden of proof onto his critic.
"El Salvador is willing to facilitate the transfer of 100% of its prison population, all of them, including those referred to as political prisoners and any other cases that it deems violate its 'love and life' policy."
"There is only one condition that I understand will be shared by you: they must all be included. Because if it concerns 'concentration camps', even a single detainee remaining there would be unacceptable."
Bukele framed the proposal as a political opportunity for Petro.
"This is a historic opportunity to solidify your legacy as the liberator who extended the firm rope of justice, to lift thousands from the abyss of exclusion."
The Salvadoran state of emergency, in effect since March 27, 2022 and extended more than 48 times, has suspended constitutional rights such as the presumption of innocence and the right to an attorney, resulting in over 91,000 arrests.
The Salvadoran government attributes this policy to the drop in the homicide rate from 38 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2019 to 1.9 in 2025, although organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document thousands of arbitrary detentions and deaths in custody.
For its part, Colombia under Petro's "total peace" policy recorded in 2025 an increase of 12% in homicides and 87 massacres, according to the Ombudsman's Office, figures that contradict the Colombian leader's narrative about advances in security.
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