Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has introduced a proposal that could lead to the conditional release of as many as half of the people arrested under the country’s state of emergency. More than 90,000 people have been detained during the government’s four-and-a-half-year crackdown on violent street gangs.
Announced Tuesday night, the plan would primarily target prisoners labeled as gang collaborators—a category that may include people accused of serving as lookouts or paying extortion demands.
“Many people have committed crimes, but their offense was collaborating with gangs,” Bukele said. “They should be in prison, but we come from a country where gang collaboration was not unusual. If we arrested everyone who had collaborated with gangs, we would have to detain 20% of the population.”
The president gave few specifics, but said officials would review individual cases to identify prisoners who could be released early under supervision. The measure could ultimately affect up to half of those detained during the emergency period.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has proposed the conditional release of up to half of the people detained under the country’s state of emergency. (Alex Peña/Getty Images)
The state of emergency began in March 2022, following a surge in violence that claimed more than 60 lives in a single day. Although initially approved for 30 days, the measure has been extended repeatedly.
The crackdown has coincided with a sharp fall in El Salvador’s homicide rate and has helped boost the country’s appeal as a tourist destination. At the same time, it suspended or limited constitutional safeguards, including detainees’ rights to know why they were arrested, consult an attorney and receive visitors.
Bukele has argued that the emergency powers are essential to dismantling the rival criminal organizations MS-13 and Barrio 18.
Human rights advocates have strongly condemned the policy, saying it has enabled mass arbitrary detention. They have repeatedly called on the president to end the state of emergency.
El Salvador’s state of emergency suspended or restricted constitutional protections, including detainees’ rights to learn the reasons for their arrest, obtain legal counsel and receive visitors. (Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Human rights groups say they have documented more than 6,000 complaints since the emergency began, along with the deaths of at least 575 people while in government custody.
Critics say releasing thousands of detainees would not, by itself, undo the consequences of years spent behind bars.
“Those subjected to arbitrary detention deserve more than their freedom,” exiled Salvadoran attorney Bertha Deleón wrote on X. “They also deserve compensation from the State of El Salvador for the physical and psychological damage caused by imprisonment, as well as family hardship, lost employment or education and harm to their reputations.”
Bukele has rejected criticism from human rights organizations in El Salvador and abroad, arguing that those groups should focus more on the victims of gang violence.
Human rights organizations have criticized El Salvador’s state of emergency, saying it has resulted in widespread arbitrary arrests. (Salvadoran Government via Getty Images)
The president also defended continuing the emergency measures, while saying he ultimately wants to bring them to an end.
Government statistics show that El Salvador’s homicide rate has plunged over the past decade, including during Bukele’s presidency. The rate fell from more than 100 murders per 100,000 residents in 2015—four years before he took office—to 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025.
However, officials have adopted a narrower definition of homicide that does not include killings by police, deaths inside prisons or bodies discovered in unmarked graves.