Washington’s Salvadorans Approve of El Salvador’s President

The Kilmar Abrego Garcia deportation battle did not spark comments—but President Nayib Bukele seemed popular among Salvadorans in the U.S. capital.

Jose, who came to the United States from El Salvador decades ago, in Washington on April 18, 2025. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—The afternoon of April 18, Good Friday, was warm and sunny in Washington, D.C.—a clean, dry interlude before swampy weather settles in.

On the streets of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, men from El Salvador, Guatemala, and other Central American countries played cards at tables and shot the breeze on stoops. Salvadoran restaurants, shops, and street vendors are particularly thick on the ground in a neighborhood where they’ve had a presence since the 1960s.

People flocked to a Catholic church, the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, living proof of the strong Catholic faith that anchors many here.

Elsewhere in the nation’s capital, politicians are divided over Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as he and President Donald Trump cooperate to crack down on crime and illegal immigration.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), whose territory begins just three-and-a-half miles away from Mount Pleasant, recently returned from visiting deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the illegal Salvadoran immigrant to the United States has “experienced trauma.”

On April 10, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, who the Department of Justice said was sent to El Salvador by mistake.

The Department of Homeland Security has said it would deport him if he comes back because he is an MS-13 gang member, which Abrego Garcia and his attorneys have denied. Bukele said he will not return the Salvadoran national to the United States. On April 20, the State Department said Abrego Garcia was moved from the country’s maximum-security prison to a different detention facility.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on April 19 temporarily blocked the deportation of a group of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, the same law invoked in Abrego Garcia’s deportation. Bukele on April 20 proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela that would see Venezuelan nationals interned in El Salvador swapped for political prisoners arrested by the socialist regime in Caracas.

During a recent trip to El Salvador, The Epoch Times found that the majority of locals interviewed approved of Bukele, his crackdown on criminal gangs in the country, and his acceptance of Salvadoran deportees from the United States.

In Mount Pleasant, the high-profile Abrego Garcia case apparently did not register with locals. As the case and how Bukele handled it continue to generate heated debates among U.S. politicians and in the media, most Salvadorans and Salvadoran Americans interviewed by The Epoch Times voiced strong approval of him.

“Bukele No. 1!” Jose said. He said he had been in the United States for 27 years.

What was El Salvador like before Bukele?

Jose mimed a stabbing and mugging: “Gimme, gimme!”

“Now,” he said, “it’s very good.”

The energetic 72-year-old man dismissed concerns from some about the country’s treatment of prisoners, saying only a tiny percentage of the population objected to Bukele’s enforcement. He recalled an earlier period when his family in San Miguel, a large city in eastern El Salvador, had to pay a monthly rent to gangsters.

Adrian, who stood beside Jose and Robert Ramos, another Bukele fan, said he was happy to see Bukele’s actions against MS-13.

Before Bukele, he said, El Salvador was “not good.”

Ramos told The Epoch Times he likes both Bukele and Trump.

Adrian, an immigrant to the United States from El Salvador, in Washington on April 18, 2025. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

Robert Ramos, an immigrant to the United States from El Salvador, in Washington on April 18, 2025. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

A block away, another man named Jose said he first arrived in the United States from El Salvador 31 years ago. He, too, said he likes the leader of his country of origin.

Further down the street, a small shop offered groceries, toys, and, crucially, remittances to family or friends in other countries. Esmerelda took entries on pen in a spiral-bound notepad as a slow stream of men trickled in and out.

Speaking through a translator application, the Honduran said the Salvadorans with whom she works appreciate Bukele.

Life in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, Washington, on April 18, 2025. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

Nelson, also Honduran, was one of Esmerelda’s customers. Through a translator, he said Bukele was very good and had changed El Salvador. He voiced support for the gang arrests.

Neither Nelson nor Esmerelda was familiar with the Abrego Garcia case.

Not every Salvadoran in Washington who spoke with The Epoch Times was pro-Bukele.

Jesus and Mary in the sixth sorrow on Good Friday, outside the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Catholic church in Washington on April 18, 2025. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

Ana Lemos, who was working at a fruit stand in nearby Columbia Heights, did not seem to be familiar with the Abrego Garcia case either. She voiced concern about the large-scale detention of alleged gang members in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center before trial, saying a separate prison should be used for such individuals.

Public opinion can change. But on Good Friday, voices like Lemos’s seem to be a minority in a Salvadoran belt of the District of Columbia.