crs_reports: R49478

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R49478 El Salvador in Brief: Overview and U.S. Relations 2026-10-06T04:00:00Z 2026-10-08T14:23:07Z Active Reports Joshua Klein El Salvador, Latin America, Caribbean & Canada El Salvador is a small, densely populated country in Central America with deep historical, migratory, and economic ties to the United States. The United States has played a prominent role in El Salvador’s political and economic development, including through extensive involvement in the country’s civil conflict from 1980 to 1992. The conflict also contributed to increased migration flows from El Salvador to the United States that continued into the 2020s, driven in part by security and economic factors. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 1.5 million Salvadoran-born individuals resided in the United States in 2024. This total includes more than 170,000 Salvadoran nationals who have relief from removal and work authorization through Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The United States is also a key trade and investment partner for El Salvador, as well as the country’s main source of remittances. According to El Salvador’s central bank, remittances to El Salvador from abroad totaled about $10 billion in 2025, the equivalent of roughly 27% of El Salvador’s dollarized economy (by gross domestic product). Since 2019, President Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas (NI) party have incrementally consolidated power across El Salvador’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches to become the dominant force in Salvadoran politics. Since he assumed office, President Bukele and NI’s majority in El Salvador’s unicameral legislature have overseen several changes to the country’s political and electoral processes, including through constitutional amendments in 2025 that permit continuous presidential reelection, among other things. President Bukele has presided over a significant decrease in gang-related violence, which has plagued El Salvador since the 1990s. Bukele’s security strategy is underpinned by an ongoing state of exception, which permits the suspension of some civil liberties and enables mass arrests of anyone suspected of belonging to or aiding gangs. Despite concerns from international and local observers about human rights violations under the state of exception and rising authoritarianism under the Bukele administration, President Bukele generally has received strong domestic approval ratings compared with those of other Latin American leaders, in part due to the reductions in gang violence. Successive U.S. Administrations have sought to collaborate with El Salvador, including on migration and security issues. Bilateral cooperation in these areas has further strengthened during the second Trump Administration. In 2025, the two governments concluded several agreements, including an arrangement enabling alleged members of terrorist organizations deported from the United States to be housed in Salvadoran prisons. The Trump Administration also designated two El Salvador-based gangs as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorist entities. During the 119th Congress, some Members have debated U.S. policy toward El Salvador and introduced legislation to shape the executive branch’s approach to the bilateral relationship. Some Members of Congress praised the Trump Administration’s efforts to increase bilateral cooperation on migration and security issues. Other Members, citing human rights and transparency concerns, criticized the arrangement to house U.S.-deported alleged terrorists in Salvadoran prisons and introduced legislation to prohibit U.S. funding for some Salvadoran prisons (H.R. 4001) and to direct the President to impose visa and asset-blocking sanctions on several Bukele administration officials (S. 2058 and H.R. 6878), among other measures. More broadly, some Members have expressed support for President Bukele and his policies, whereas other Members have voiced concerns about rising authoritarianism and human rights violations under Bukele’s administration. Ahead of the September 9, 2026, expiration of El Salvador’s TPS designation, some Members introduced legislation (H.R. 10297) and called on the Trump Administration to extend TPS status for Salvadorans. On September 9, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published an alert on its website stating that “an announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time. Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection including work authorization.” U.S. officials have not made further announcements about El Salvador’s TPS status. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R49478/R49478.2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R49478.html

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