{"id":2399499,"date":"2025-02-05T21:43:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/luna-to-lead-el-salvador-caucus-delegation-to-meet-with-bukele-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T21:44:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:44:21","slug":"luna-to-lead-el-salvador-caucus-delegation-to-meet-with-bukele-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/luna-to-lead-el-salvador-caucus-delegation-to-meet-with-bukele-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Luna to lead El Salvador Caucus delegation to meet with Bukele &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fluna-to-lead-el-salvador-caucus-delegation-to-meet-with-bukele-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2399499&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Anna Paulina luna, the co-chairwoman of the El Salvador Caucus, is set too lead a\u200d congressional \u200ddelegation to \u200bmeet Salvadoran\u2062 President\u2062 Nayib Bukele. This\u200c trip marks her first official visit to El Salvador since taking over the role after \u2062Rep. Matt GaetzS departure from \u200cCongress.Luna has expressed\u200d support for a controversial plan to \u200c<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">send violent \u2064illegal immigrants<\/a> from \u200dthe U.S. to Salvadoran prisons, a proposal \u2063that Bukele has accepted, along with the commitment\u2063 to \u2064incarcerate \u2063members of gangs such as MS-13. <\/p>\n<p>The meeting, scheduled for March, is part of broader efforts to \u2063improve\u2064 U.S.-El Salvador relations, which have\u200b shifted positively\u200b in recent years under bukele&#8217;s leadership. His government\u200c has \u200caggressively pursued measures to reduce gang violence, resulting in a notable decline in emigration\u2062 from El salvador. The bipartisan el salvador Caucus,formed in \u2064July,aims\u2064 to foster better understanding and cooperation between the U.S. and El Salvador, building\u200d on \u2062the historic\u2063 relationship that involves \u2064millions of Salvadoran-Americans\u200c living \u2064in the\u200c U.S.<\/p>\n<p>the\u200c delegation&#8217;s focus will \u2063be on addressing issues surrounding crime and immigration, including the implications of Bukele&#8217;s radical policies\u2062 that have \u200ctransformed El Salvador from one\u200d of the most violent \u2064countries to\u200b one of the safer \u200clocations in the\u200d Western Hemisphere.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Anna Paulina Luna to lead El Salvador Caucus delegation to meet with Bukele<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_1976187\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>EXCLUSIVE &mdash;<\/strong> El Salvador Caucus Co-chairwoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) will lead a delegation to <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/el-salvador\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">El Salvador<\/a> to meet with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>Luna took over as co-head of the House El Salvador Caucus after Rep. Matt Gaetz left Congress. In an appearance on the <em>Matt Gaetz Show<\/em> on One America News Network, Luna revealed she was going to take her first trip to the country while in her current role, leading a congressional delegation.<\/p>\n<p>She announced the trip after Gaetz asked her about President Donald Trump&rsquo;s plan to send some of the United States&rsquo;s most violent criminals to Salvadoran prisons.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) speaks outside the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-who-set-himself-on-fire-outside-trump-trial-dies\/\" title=\"The man who self-immolated outside the Trump trial has passed away\">hush money criminal case<\/a> of former president Donald Trump in New York on Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo\/Ted Shaffrey)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Luna said she would &ldquo;love&rdquo; to send violent, illegal immigrant criminals to El Salvador. She said the trip to meet with Bukele personally would occur sometime in March.<\/p>\n<p>Bukele announced earlier this week that he would accept violent illegal immigrants from the U.S. The plan was welcomed by conservatives, though proved controversial among Democrats and other critics.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,&rdquo; State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary-rubios-meeting-with-salvadoran-president-nayib-bukele\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a>. &ldquo;He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/170-new-sanctuary-locations-under-biden-harris-administration-a-40-surge-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"170 new sanctuary locations under Biden-Harris administration, a 40% surge - Washington Examiner\">criminal illegal migrants<\/a> from any country.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Bukele&rsquo;s government has worked to cut down on the number of migrants fleeing El Salvador, once one of the top migrant groups to the U.S. According to the&nbsp;<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, the number of Salvadorans trying to cross the southern border illegally has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-country-with-the-highest-murder-rate-now-has-the-highest-incarceration-rate-b5401da7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">declined<\/a>&nbsp;by 44% from its height in 2015 to 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The bipartisan El Salvador Caucus was formed in July, a development&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/house\/3072760\/matt-gaetz-announce-creation-congressional-el-salvador-caucus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">first reported<\/a>&nbsp;by the&nbsp;<em>Washington Examiner<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In his last act as head of the caucus, Gaetz <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/foreign-policy\/3236780\/gaetz-comemorates-zenith-us-el-salvador-relations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"hosted a Salvadoran delegation\">hosted a Salvadoran delegation<\/a> at the National Archives in November. Speaking with the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em> at the event, Salvadoran Ambassador Carmen Milena Mayorga expressed optimism that relations with the U.S. would improve with Trump taking power &mdash; something that appears to have borne out.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And now, with the new administration, I think we can also improve some areas like trade, we can have a good exchange experience in security and much more. And I think we have a very good representation in the Congress, which is also very good for our diaspora,&rdquo; she said at the time, noting there were 3 million Salvadorans living in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Mayorga also noted past troubles between the U.S. and El Salvador, in line with the night&rsquo;s theme that the current moment was the high point of relations.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been a true ally for the United States. Sometimes in the past, we didn&rsquo;t have the correct treatment. It was &hellip; some unfair actions and events. So now, I think we&rsquo;re looking forward. We&rsquo;re happy that we know some new faces in the administration,&rdquo; Mayorga said, citing then-Sen. Marco Rubio and accurately predicting that he would be chosen as Trump&rsquo;s secretary of state.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past five years, El Salvador has gone from a byword for dysfunction in American politics to a potential model for some, particularly for those on the Right. The turnaround was due to the controversial policies of Bukele.<\/p>\n<p>Bukele won the 2019 election on an anti-establishment platform, particularly around promises to crack down on gang violence, which had paralyzed the country. Years into his administration, a massive statewide crackdown on gangs in 2022 effectively destroyed the infamous MS-13 and 18th Street gangs, which had de facto-ruled the country for more than a decade. Roughly 75,163 suspected gang members were arrested,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2024\/1\/31\/unwaveringly-loyal-why-el-salvadors-bukele-is-poised-for-reelection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to<\/a>&nbsp;Al Jazeera, and thrown in specially designed prisons.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For all its criticism, the policy has led the Massachusetts-sized country to go from the most violent country on Earth to one of the safest, boasting the second-lowest murder rate in the Western Hemisphere behind only Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Though the murder rate had declined for several years since an all-time peak in 2015 of 106 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, largely due to government&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/article\/whats-behind-spike-violence-el-salvador\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">negotiations<\/a>&nbsp;with, and appeasement of, the two leading gangs, Bukele&rsquo;s approach effectively broke the power of the gangs. El Salvador&rsquo;s current murder rate is 92% lower than that of 2015, the&nbsp;<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-country-with-the-highest-murder-rate-now-has-the-highest-incarceration-rate-b5401da7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_1976187\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"1976187\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anna Paulina Luna to head El Salvador Caucus delegation meeting with Bukele<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2653,"featured_media":2399500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24137781518302.jpg.optimal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[49906,44880,18336],"class_list":["post-2399499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-caucus-delegation","tag-el-salvador","tag-luna"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24137781518302.jpg.optimal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399499"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399503,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399499\/revisions\/2399503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2399500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}