President Trump struck a deal with El Salvador to send migrants to its prisons. But the country is far from a model of law and order. Inside this system, an American who’s been cleared of gang ties remains locked away.
By Nick Valencia | July 31, 2025
SAN MIGUEL, EL SALVADOR—The United States has been sending people to El Salvador under agreements first struck by Donald Trump and embraced by the current administration. The premise: El Salvador, under President Nayib Bukele, would take them in, process them, and keep them secure. But despite the rhetoric, El Salvador is no rule-of-law paradise. It is a state of exception — literally — where due process is suspended, accusations become convictions, and political theater often replaces justice.
Which is how Walter Josué Huete Alvarado, a 32-year-old American citizen from Los Angeles, has spent more than 800 days locked in a Salvadoran prison cell despite being cleared by the country’s own police of any gang affiliation.
An official police memo, obtained by Nick Valencia News, concluded that Huete’s arrest may have been a mistake — the evidence was flimsy, his rights likely violated, and there was “no clear certainty” he belonged to or had ties with any gang. Yet Huete remains imprisoned.
In April 2022, Huete traveled to El Salvador with his two young daughters to finalize their residency paperwork. At a party in San Miguel, local police arrested him. Their evidence? The tattoos on his hand: “L.A.” for his hometown and “W” for Walter. Authorities insisted they were gang symbols. Within days, he was charged under Bukele’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown.
Huete’s lawyer, Winston Alexander Cortez Campos, says his client had a perfunctory hearing within the first 15 days of detention. He is being held at the Centro Industrial de Cumplimiento de Penas y Rehabilitación de Santa Ana — known as Camones — a prison with rehabilitation workshops where no gang members are housed. His placement there is proof, experts say, that the government knows he isn’t a gang member.
A Family Left in the Dark
Since his arrest, Huete’s family has unraveled. His daughters fled to Virginia within two weeks. His wife, Jenny, has spent two years begging for help — contacting lawmakers, embassies, anyone who might listen. Senator Tim Kaine’s office, she said, told her that because Huete had a felony as a teenager — a high-speed chase at 17 — they couldn’t help.
“He just wants to come home,” Jenny said. “He’ll never go back to El Salvador. Just get him out.” She hasn’t heard from him since July 3.
“He’s Fucked in That System”
Over 70,000 people have been detained under Bukele’s years-long state of emergency.
“Once the accusation is made — just the accusation — you’re untouchable for legal representation,” said Tom Boerman, a gang expert who’s reviewed thousands of such cases. “No lawyer will represent you. You’re radioactive.”
Attorneys risk threats, disbarment, or worse if they defend detainees. Many families are scammed by lawyers who take their money and vanish. Trials, when they happen at all, are mass video proceedings where hundreds are arraigned at once and the allegation is treated as evidence.
The ongoing state of emergency has suspended has suspended some fundamental rights related to due process in the country, while the government fights the country’s gangs.
Among other things, the measure restricts the right to be informed of rights and to have access to a lawyer.
Earlier this year, El Salvador’s government arrested Ruth López, an anticorruption lawyer from the country’s premier human rights organization. The government alleged she participated in the embezzlement of funds when she held a government position earlier in her career, according to the Associated Press.
Her organization, Cristosal, condemned the arrest, describing it to the AP as a “short-term enforced disappearance.”
A Deafening Silence
Since March 2022, at least 427 people have died in Salvadoran custody. Many show signs of torture, asphyxiation, or deliberate medical neglect. The U.S. government has remained quiet — even as it continues working with Bukele’s government to house deportees in the same prisons.
“This is a U.S. citizen, with no criminal record in El Salvador, who went there to help his kids — and who may now die in a foreign prison because nobody in Washington wants to touch it,” Boerman said.
His ability to speak out about what he’s seen may be the very reason he’s still inside.
“Which,” Boerman added, “may be exactly why they won’t let him out.”
The Test That Lies Ahead
For all the tough talk about law and order, the U.S. is now outsourcing its immigration enforcement to a country where innocence isn’t protection and guilt doesn’t require proof. The same prison system holding Walter Huete — an American cleared of gang ties — is now receiving the asylum seekers we deport under Trump-era agreements.
If this is what happens to an American with a passport, imagine what awaits the people without one.
