SAN SALVADOR (AP) — El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and his party are pushing forward a constitutional reform that would permit life prison sentences in a country that has imprisoned more than 1% of its population in its war on gangs.
The reform was proposed on Tuesday before El Salvador's legislature, which is firmly in the control of Bukele's party. The measure is likely to pass.
It comes after Bukele has pushed forward rounds of constitutional reforms, which have been sharply criticized for chipping away at checks-and-balances and undermining the country's delicate democracy.
“We will see who supports this reform and who dares to defend the idea that the Constitution should continue prohibiting murderers and rapists from remaining in prison," Bukele wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
In August, the government pushed through another reform that would do away with presidential term limits, paving the way for Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Legal experts widely consider Bukele's second term, that began in 2024 to violate the constitution, which prohibits consecutive reelection.
The proposed reform builds upon other measures Bukele has taken to combat El Salvador's gangs, including a state of emergency that began in March 2022 following a wave of gang violence.
The measure, which is meant to be temporary but has been extended for nearly four years, suspends key constitutional rights and has led to around 91,300 people being detained.
Human rights groups have documented cases of arbitrary detentions for years, with one group even alleging before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that the vast majority of those imprisoned under the state of emergency were arbitrarily detained. Bukele sharply criticized the allegation, but he has said that 8,000 innocent people have been released.
Bukele's government has also gone after its enemies, detaining critics and activists, and increasingly forcing journalists and opposition voices to choose between exile or prison.
Those detained under the state of exception are held in prisons with little evidence, under vague accusations by authorities, and with very little access to due process. Prisoners are often judged in mass trials and lawyers regularly lose track of where their clients are.
Officials in Bukele's government have previously vowed that gang members detained “will never return” to the streets.
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FILE - Prisoners sit in their cell at the mega prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) in Tecololuca, El Salvador, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, file)
Gregory Bovino, who became a face of the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in large cities, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he plans to retire from the Border Patrol in the coming weeks.
Bovino, 55, joined the Border Patrol in 1996 and steadily rose through the ranks. But he wasn't well-known outside the agency until last June, when he became commander of the administration's crackdown in Los Angeles, which resulted in thousands of arrests, most notably near Home Depots and at car washes. Agents smashed car windows, blew open a door to a house and patrolled the fabled MacArthur Park. on horseback.
Bovino, who often appeared in tactical gear, took his act to Chicago, patrolling down the Chicago River, in the Michigan Avenue tourist district and in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs. He led a helicopter raid at a large apartment building and used chemical agents to face demonstrators.
After short stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Bovino was a near-daily presence as Minnesota's Twin Cities turned into a battleground between demonstrators and immigration authorities that led to the deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Bovino left Minnesota shortly after Pretti was killed on Jan. 24 and was replaced by White House border czar Tom Homan.
Bovino retires as chief of the Border Patrol's El Centro, California, sector, a position he held since 2020.
“We’re not going to hit one location. We’re going to hit as many as we can. All over — all over — the Los Angeles region, we’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop. We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.”
Bovino in an Aug. 25 interview with the AP describing his “turn and burn” approach to racking up immigration arrests.
“What happens at the border, even 100 years ago, didn’t stay at the border, and it still doesn’t. That’s why we’re here in Los Angeles.”
Bovino, in AP interview, explaining the Border Patrol's increasing presence away from the border.
“We use the least amount of force necessary to effect the arrest, we do that. If I had more CS gas, I would have deployed it.”
Bovino, in a Nov. 3 interview with the AP, on throwing a canister of gas at a crowd in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. The Department of Homeland Security said Bovino was hit with a rock. Bystanders rejected that claim and said agents deployed gas without warning. A federal judge later said Bovino lied about the encounter.
“My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress. … My role is simply to see that in the enforcement of those laws, the agents are acting in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.”
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordering Bovino on Oct. 28 to provide daily briefings on how his agents are enforcing the law in Chicago.
“This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Bovino at a Jan. 24 news conference on the fatal shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti by federal authorities. His version of events was immediately called into question by eyewitness videos.
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“I don't think it's a pullback, it's a little bit of a change. Everybody in this room that has a business, you know you make little changes. You know Bovino's very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy, and in some cases, that's good, maybe it wasn't good here.”
President Donald Trump, on Bovino's reassignment from Minnesota in a Jan. 27 interview with Fox News Channel.
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“She is the best Secretary I ever worked for, period. The others weren’t even close. Noem is the ultimate patriot.”
Bovino commenting March 5 on Trump firing Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security.
FILE - U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, center, and other federal immigration officers stop at a gas station, Jan. 13, 2026, in Columbia Heights, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
FILE - U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino warns members of the media to keep back, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
FILE - U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino shouts at protesters, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck, File)
