Former President Donald Trump
00:00:04
In Springfield. They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that do live there.
Ever since former President Donald Trump made that wild, racist and false claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, on the debate stage earlier this month. That city has been turned upside down. Dozens of bomb threats have closed. Hospitals, some schools moved to online learning, an annual arts and culture festival that was supposed to take place this weekend canceled.
Miguelito Jerome
00:00:41
We feel like people are acting based on fear, panicking. And the Haitian community itself, it's confusion.
And when CNN went to Springfield earlier this week, the damage all that fear mongering had done on the Haitian community, there was plain to see.
Vilbrun Dorsainvil
00:00:57
I was feeling a little bit down. I feel better right now. My teachers, coworkers, friends. They reached out to me somehow asking me, How are you holding up? Okay, We'll love you. We need you here.
You still see Springfield as a beautiful place.
Vilbrun Dorsainvil
00:01:15
It is.
Now, this whole episode does not negate the very real concerns many Americans have about the stress and influx of migrants can have on their city's resources. Nor does it invalidate the lives of those immigrants in Springfield, their legally, we should say, who have made the difficult choice to leave their home country in search of a better life. And our reporters hear that all the time from migrants who arrive at the US southern border. They don't necessarily want to leave places like Venezuela or Guatemala or Haiti. But economic hardship or extreme violence makes having a career or raising a family impossible. But what happens if things actually get better in that home country? Would they go back? My guest is CNN senior national correspondent David Culver. We're going to talk about how El Salvador has pulled off a migration transformation, but one that might come with a serious cost. From CNN, this is one thing. I'm David Rind.
'So, David, you cover immigration for CNN. You and I have spoken about what that looks like at the US-Mexico border, but you are recently back from one of the countries that many migrants are coming from El Salvador. What did you find there.
Interesting in that over the past, I would say several months, I've been hearing from folks from El Salvador and they have been encouraging me, David, to go back to El Salvador to get a sense of what life is like there and why the numbers of migrants are actually down. It's down compared to the past couple of years by about, you know, 36% or so. And this year is projected to be down another roughly 6%. So this is significant in that we wondered, well, why is it that El Salvador is seeing this decline in folks wanting to leave? And we found something else there, and that is people wanting to go back.
Well, so what's the reason? Why are less people leaving?
The name you hear over and over and over is Bukele. Nayib Bukele. This is a guy who at 37 in 2019 became the country's president.
Freedom is one of the things human beings yearn for the most, and our country, after a long time, finally has freedom
Came in with this very controversial approach of wanting to eradicate the gangs and corruption, which many politicians run on that platform. But he's come forward with tactics that a lot of people have questioned. Human rights groups say there's widespread abuses here. Critics say that he's just tightening his his control, that he's an authoritarian. We've heard dictator. And so we wondered how that was being felt on the ground. And one thing you cannot deny is that people feel safer.
How would you describe this area? I don't know. Three or four years ago?
Rene Merino Monroy
00:04:20
It totally totally uh, different. It was totally, uh, dangerous
We went to give you an example around a public street in a very once notoriously gang infested neighborhood.
Rene Merino Monroy
00:04:33
We had in the past summer police by the police's or the military says that because they they had control the total control.
Would even feel safe enough to enter an area like.
This. And what they saw and.
As we were walking with the defense minister, we obviously had a lot of security around us. I was wearing body armor. And so I was prepared for, you know, what could be at any moment violence coming our way. Given how deep rooted Ms13 was in this particular neighborhood.
They said may God bless you.
Rene Merino Monroy
00:05:12
Yeah. I'm glad you said that. Yeah. But they are. They are happy.
And we had a lot of people looking at us, locking on to us and then approaching us. But it wasn't what we expected.
Rene Merino Monroy
00:05:25
(meeting people)
They wanted photos with defense minister. I mean, it felt like a victory parade. And and so you've got this sense from person after person. And we said, why are you feeling this way? Why the joy? And one woman broke into tears and she said, only God knows what it was like here before.
Well, so what is that cleanup effort actually look like? What are the methods that they're using?
You're talking about tens of thousands of arrests. The count right now is more than 81,000 people arrested. Wow. And so the question is, well, where do you put them? Right. Well, the most hardened gang members are said to be in this place called Sickert, which is the terrorism Confinement Center. It's newly built. It holds roughly 40,000 inmates. Currently, the government says there are some 14,000 being held there. They wouldn't let us in. And yet, you know, they gave us access to some of the lesser security prisons, which, in fairness, few have seen. And that was an interesting space to go into because that's where you have the majority of the people who are arrested and they're put to work.
They're putting together a desk here that just, you know, I think they were just kind of sitting there. They've all stopped working to keep quiet for us.
But, I mean, they're making government uniforms. They're building desks for local schools. They're in the community repainting things that had gang insignia all over it, demolishing tombstones that looked more like memorials to MS 13 gang leaders.
And here they've turned on the lights. They're going to show us some of the designs that they've made for books and government paperwork, it looks like, looks like a calendar here.
And the way the government sees this is as a rehabilitation program. But the concern is that many innocent people have been swept up in these mass arrests. And Bucheli has basically admitted that, yeah, that's possible, but that's kind of the price you pay in order to turn a country around. One guy in particular was arrested, says he was arrested because somebody anonymously called police and said he looked like a gang member with his tattoos. He was put into custody for five months. I asked him what he thought of Bucheli. He goes, well, you can't deny things are safer. He even said, the fact that you're in our home right now talking to us. Well, that would have been unthinkable just two years back.
So even though he was swept up and put away for a kind of baseless thing, he just feels safer and other people do, too.
He's angry still. And he wants some sort of, I think, acknowledgment for the pain he's had to endure. And he even had to go to the hospital. But he did not deny that things were safer, which was interesting to us. And we met the mom of another man who's been detained.
And he's still in jail? He's in jail?
He's been in jail for at least two years? She's not in touch with him.
But do you feel safer here, or how do you feel now in this neighborhood?
And she said, look, her neighborhood now is called La Carbonara, that Campanella was a major, major hub for Ms. 13 within the capital, San Salvador. And she said before nobody would visit her, not even her family. She says now she's able to walk around her neighborhood and she doesn't have to pay the extortion payments that were essentially labeled as rent.
the neighborhood has improved, for security reasons, but the economy, no
For me the economy is bad
And she says that she's in a space where she feels like despite her son being detained, which is really hurting her economically, she does feel like security is a lot better, though. She wants her son released.
So, David, you said earlier that people who had fled El Salvador because of the gang violence and the economic struggles that kind of come along with that are now coming back to the country. What goes into a decision like that?
One couple we met was Victor and Blanca Bolanos, and they for 15 years lived in Denver, Colorado.
We left in 2003 because the economic situation was terrible.
She's saying they left in 2003 to the US because the situation economically was really bad.
They left El Salvador back in 2003. So this was after having obviously gone through the 80s and 90s, a civil war after having to deal with then the resurgence of gangs, Ms13 in 18th Street in particular. And they had three college aged sons who they left behind. But their idea was we're going to go to the U.S., we're going to work, and we're eventually going to bring our boys here, and they can then build their future in the U.S. or we meet them in San Salvador. And they've been back in the country for about six years. And they took a voluntary departure order, basically saying that they didn't want to be fully deported. So they agreed to go forward and leave the United States after losing their asylum claim.
So it was still really active even just a few years ago.
But, but really right now, why did we undertake this? Because today it is possible.
Everything belonged to the gangs.
But when they went back to El Salvador six years ago, they said it was still very, very dangerous and they were really concerned.
But, but really right now, why did we undertake this? Because today it is possible.
What's changed in the past few years has motivated them to not only want to stay but open a business. And they now see their future back in El Salvador with their grandkids being, you know, so little but feeling like they can actually take them to parks, they can walk around the neighborhood, things that they said you just could not do before.
Wow. And how do I eat that way?
So what we do, we open the proposal, you open it, then we put the cabbage, and then we put the sauce and they eat it.
We went to this pupuseria. So pupusa is obviously a staple in El Salvador. And it was incredibly popular. And there's a long line outside. And it turns out that President Bukele, who's a millennial, tweeted that this proposed area would get free coffee if they discounted their proposals. So basically kind of ordered this local business to do.
Is it the president's coffee that you're giving away?
Yes. It is is the president's coffee and you can taste is not is not a cheap cup is a really good coffee.
So but it was a huge marketing boom for this little cafe in this area because if you walk into this place, you see kind of modified tweets about Keller. You see murals of him.
He's always revered in some of these places. And the owner says, look, I think he's saved my son's lives. He said my sons would have been recruited by gangs or killed themselves.
Just of what he did with the security of the country. I am pleased, I don't need anything else. There's a lot of people that are coming through because of that. Because. Because to see how safe the country is now.
Hey, I'm David. Nice to meet you.
But as I was walking out, I heard my name being shouted by somebody who happened to be from the D.C. area where I'm from. And he said, I want you to meet my wife, Jessica. We just flew in. She left in the 80s during the Civil War. She was a kid. She's back for the first time.
Hey, Jessica. You're from Centerville? I'm from Fairfax Station.
Jessica Dos Santos
00:13:10
You are?
So we go upstairs and there with extended family, and she says that she's just trying to process it all. She seemed to be in shock.
Now I walk around and. Maybe I'm missing something, but. I don't see any remnants of anything. Activity or violence.
Jessica Dos Santos
00:13:29
This can't be the country that I used to, like, hear about, you know, the violence that Ms. 13. I was like, This can't be the same country. There's no way, because I don't see that.
And she goes, I'm grateful that we're able to be back here, that I can bring my kids. But she said, for me, what's which is still a struggle is to think of how many years have been lost.
Jessica Dos Santos
00:13:50
And now I'm like kind of sad that I've lost so many years and not have seen my family for like 30 something years. So yeah, it's nice to be back.
And your kids are connecting with their blood.
Jessica Dos Santos
00:14:02
Their blood, yeah.
'I mean, how should we think about all this when it comes to the very real concerns about the impacts of illegal and legal immigration in communities in the U.S.? Because like we obviously hear the presidential candidates talking about this and their different approaches to how to handle it, like Harris is talking about. Securing the border. Trump takes it way further, talks about the idea of mass deportations. But will it take a controversial crack down of gangs consolidation of political power that you talk about financial incentives in these other countries to kind of encourage people to come back and discourage them from coming to the US-Mexico border in search of a better life here?
I think there are a few takeaways from this. One, you mentioned former President Trump. He has name dropped El Salvador and has said, well, there murders are down significantly because they're sending their murderers, they're sending their prisoners across the U.S. southern border and into the U.S. We took that question to the security minister, Villatoro, in El Salvador. He says that is simply not true. Go look at our prisons. But it does bring up the question of of how, then do you tackle the U.S. southern border? It's a place that I've been many times, and you realize the question has to be answered at the borders before the border. That is to say, you've got to go to the root causes of this migration.
Do you think because the security now is better here? Do you think the economy will follow?
And you think the economy will get better because security is better.
And it does feel like and perhaps it's just common sense when people feel like they have security, when they have stability. One migrant, Victor Bolanos, told me this directly. When you feel like you have an opportunity, you're not going to go anywhere. You're going to stay. You always wanted to come home.
But did you ever think you would be.
Able to live in my home? You know, this is my home. This is my country.
But despite looking at this as controversial as even having some compassion for those who have been taken into custody, most people who we have encountered down there and people here who are considering going back say they're willing to look past that.
President Bukele, started, you know, doing things, you know. So he's a smart man. He knows what he's doing. And he has kind of a miracle here. You know.
We should point out, like I've been to several countries now in the past year and a half across Latin America, everywhere from Mexico to Ecuador to Colombia, Panama to Haiti. And Bucheli has mentioned over and over, people often say we wish he was our leader in this country. So the question that I've posed to even some of the U.S. lawmakers who are on both sides of the aisle very much in support of the El Salvador solution, as they say. One Democratic congressman said, look, this is really promising. At the same time, we have to look closely at the human rights abuses and the basically elimination of any due process for certain people. And he said at the end of this term, Bucheli needs to leave. Otherwise, we're going have issues.
I was going to say, you hear the stuff about the kind of hero worship, you know, aspect of it and the consolidation of power. And my mind, like, goes to Venezuela and what's happening there. And that is obviously on the other end of the spectrum that I assume the U.S. doesn't want to see either.
I think if we're still talking about a president Bucheli, 15 years from now, it's going to potentially be in a very different context. I think people really want to see what he's created, sustain as far as security is concerned. They want to see the economy continue to improve. But at the same time, they want to see a transition of power that sustains a democracy.
Right. Because you get down that path and then you see people leave just like before because of those reasons and exactly into this vicious cycle.
Really interesting. David Culver, thank you.
One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest,Nichole Pesaru,and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to have Leo Contreras, Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. We will be back on Wednesday with another episode. I will talk to you then.
