US legacy of lawlessness in Latin America: A historical power play
4 Min Read
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin explores the long history of US lawlessness in Latin America, connecting Trump’s El Salvador policies to decades of US-backed repression and impunity.
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President Donald Trump greets El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele as he arrives at the West Wing of the White House in Washington, April 13, 2025. (AP)
Greg Grandin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, examines the long, dishonorable history of US lawlessness in Latin America. Grandin, author of the newly released "America, América: A New History of the New World," draws connections between past US interventions and current events, particularly in El Salvador. His 2020 book "The End of the Myth" earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.
Grandin argues that the illegal deportation and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) represent not a break but a continuation of the United States’ history of lawlessness in the region.
Case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and modern impunity
Abrego Garcia’s transfer to El Salvador, where he remains detained, has sparked outrage among human rights advocates and critics of Trump’s El Salvador deportations. President Nayib Bukele’s refusal to return Abrego Garcia, openly stated during a visit to the Oval Office, reflects a brazen level of impunity. As Grandin notes, the disregard for accountability marks a shift from past evasions to deliberate, public displays of power meant to instill helplessness.
Today, about 2 percent of El Salvador’s population is incarcerated, giving it the highest per capita imprisonment rate in the world. The CECOT facility has become a symbol of this mass repression, backed tacitly by Washington’s policies.
The cooperation between Bukele and Trump in using El Salvador as a destination for mass deportations fits within a broader tradition of US-backed repression in Latin America. Grandin points out that CECOT is not an aberration but a continuation of a long-standing pattern of US-supported violence in the region.
From the Cold War era, when US-backed anti-communist regimes disappeared thousands, to modern-day gulags in El Salvador, Washington has leveraged regional lawlessness for strategic purposes. The infamous Operation Condor, where US intelligence helped coordinate death squads across the continent, remains a stark example of this legacy.
US-backed repression from the Cold War to today
Grandin details how the US influence fortified military regimes across Latin America. In countries like Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay, American support helped build a brutal security apparatus. Figures such as Daniel Mitrione, a US official notorious for teaching torture techniques, underscore how the history of US interventions in Latin America has always relied on repression.
Declassified documents reveal the depth of CIA involvement, from manipulating elections to orchestrating coups. The Trump administration’s willingness to support Bukele’s harsh tactics echoes these earlier interventions, reinforcing the idea that such lawlessness is deeply rooted in US foreign policy.
Resistance and hope in El Salvador and beyond
Despite this grim history, Grandin highlights a parallel narrative of resistance. In El Salvador, beyond the spotlight on lawyers and politicians, grassroots movements led by peasants, laborers, environmentalists, and feminists continue to challenge state violence. These activists, often facing assassination or imprisonment, represent the enduring struggle for human dignity.
Grandin concludes that while images of Bukele’s prisons evoke the horrors of slave ships and death camps, they also remind us of the resilience of those who fight against dehumanization. The courage of these movements, he argues, redefines the meaning of democracy and offers hope for a more humane future.
