Free Republic

Argentine authorities are working with El Salvador, a pioneering nation in bitcoin adoption, aiming to boost cryptocurrency adoption in Argentina. High-ranking officials from Argentina's National Securities Commission (CNV), the country's securities regulator, met with El Salvador's National Commission of Digital Assets on May 23 to discuss the use of cryptocurrencies, according to an official announcement by the CNV. The talks focused on El Salvador's experience in adopting bitcoin and its regulatory framework. "El Salvador has emerged as one of the leading countries, not only in the use of bitcoin, but it has also stood out in the world of crypto...

With 54 out of 60 seats in Congress, President Nayib Bukele’s party holds significant influence over legislative decisions.El Salvador President Nayib Bukele further solidified his grip on power with last week's inauguration of a new Congress. His party, New Ideas, now controls 90 percent of the seats, giving Bukele significant influence over legislative decisions, including potential changes to the Constitution for his reelection. With 54 out of 60 seats secured by New Ideas and three seats held by its allied parties, the opposition finds itself with only a marginal presence in the new Congress. The current distribution of seats empowers...

Joe Biden veered off-script during an interview with a Spanish-language radio station, appearing to admit the real reason he is allowing millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States. Since Biden took office, an estimated 11 million illegal aliens, the majority of whom are military-age males, have entered the U.S. Is that incompetence? Well, if you look at who benefits, it becomes clear that the border crisis is a strategic effort to get Democrats more voters. Biden admitted this during the interview. “It’s even a bigger influx now in terms of Hispanic voters! Err, Hispanic citizens,” Biden said. AUDIO:...

A pair of illegal aliens, considered “got-aways” after they successfully crossed the nation’s borders illegally and who are wanted for crimes such as murder, torture, and kidnapping, were found living in the United States. Angel Anibal Alvarado Benitez, a 75-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador, was deported from the United States this month after having been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in June of last year. Alvarado Benitez is wanted in El Salvador for his role in so-called “death-squad killings” during the country’s civil war. Authorities allege that Alvarado Benitez was involved in the kidnapping, torture, and...

English translation: A few days ago, there were two homicides in the northern part of our country. We have already captured the two culprits, members of the 18 Sureños gang. At this moment, 5 thousand soldiers and a thousand police officers have surrounded the districts of San José Cancasque, San Antonio Los Ranchos, Potonico and San Isidro Labrador, to completely dismantle that clique. We are not going to stop until we eradicate what little remains of the gangs.

After four years on the run, a senior leader of MS-13 – one of the largest transnational criminal organizations – was captured this month in Southern California on terrorism charges, court documents say. Freddy Ivan Jandres-Parada was accused by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York in December 2020 of being a member of MS-13’s board of directors, known as the Ranfla Nacional, along with a dozen other MS-13 members, according to his indictment. Federal authorities have been searching for him since, offering a reward for his capture on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Jandres-Parada was arrested on...

A migrant from El Salvador who is charged with molesting children as young as 6 was deported twice — then arrested and released back into the community last year despite being in the country illegally, according to authorities. Ervin Jeovany Alfaro-Lopez, 33, is accused of groping at least four little girls as they prayed at a church outside Washington, DC, while he worked there as a teacher. He faces 25 counts of sexual misconduct charges for abuse allegations date as far back as 2014. Alfaro-Lopez’s first brush with border agents was on March 23, 2015, when US Border Patrol (USBP)...

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, declared on Sunday that “we can fix” the ongoing political turmoil and rampant gang violence in Haiti, equating the images of brutality from the island nation to the state of affairs in his home country before implementing a law enforcement crackdown in 2022. Bukele did not specify who the “we” in his sentence was — whether he meant the government of El Salvador or the international community in general. He later commented that “experts” had declared similar violence in El Salvador “intrinsic” to the country, and the eradication of organized criminal violence from...

The government of El Salvador banned all gender ideology content from the nation’s public school system, education minister José Mauricio Pineda announced this week. “Confirmed: We have removed every use or trace of gender ideology from public schools,” Pineda said on Wednesday in a social media post, without giving more specifics.

An illegal immigrant from El Salvador who faced deportation orders and had run-ins with the law has been charged with murdering a 2-year-old Maryland boy caught in a shootout while in a park with his teenage mom. Nilson Granados-Trejo, 25, was charged Monday with first- and second-degree murder, the fifth suspect busted for the Feb. 8 shooting that killed toddler Jeremy Poou-Caceres and injured his 17-year-old mom, cops said. The toddler was caught in the crossfire between two groups involved in a territorial dispute over drug dealing in Langley Park, according to charging documents obtained by the Washington Post

The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has decreased crime in the country by historic lows. Some have criticized Bukele's tough-on-crime, anti-criminal stance, going as far as calling him a "dictator."Bukele responded to the critics. They say we live in a dictatorship. Ask bus passengers, people eating in restaurants, waiters. Ask whomever you want. Here in El Salvador, you can go anywhere and it’s totally safe. … Ask them what they think of El Salvador, what they think of our government, what they think of our supposed dictatorship.Bukele has an approval rating of 90 percent as of June 2023, per...

The individual who walked into Joel Osteen's Lakewood, Texas church on Sunday and pulled out a gun was identified as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36. Moreno had a 4 or 5-year-old child when entering the church wearing a trenchcoat. Local news reports that multiple sources have said that Genesse Ivonne Moreno is suspected of being the "armed woman" who was killed at the church Sunday. Reports indicated that the shooter was female, but it has since been revealed that Moreno was male. Moreno was shot and killed by off duty officers, and the weapon was emblazoned with the slogan "Free Palestine."...

Bukele's war on gangs is credited with slashing homicide rates while restoring security and dignity to citizens of what was once one of the world's most dangerous countries. There is no sign of Bukele's crackdown coming to an end any time soon. The president, who describes himself as the 'world's coolest dictator', appears to have swept to victory in last weekend's election, so far winning 83 percent of the vote. His war on El Salvador's gangs is cited as a major reason behind his popularity.

El Salvadorian voters will likely re-elect their current president Nayib Bukele but not before he finishes up a trite internet spat with Squad member Ilhan Omar. Bukele, who affectionately calls himself the 'world's coolest dictator,' traded barbs with the progressive legislator last week after she posted on X about 'threats to democracy' in El Salvador. The Central American leader, 42, has spent his time in power cleaning up crime in his country and ensuring that the famously high murder rate plummeted by locking up tens of thousands of violent gang members.

El Salvador will hold an unprecedented presidential election on Sunday as polls suggest President Nayib Bukele will win reelection by an overwhelming landslide despite the country’s Constitution explicitly forbidding presidents from seeking more than one term. Sunday will see some 5.5 million Salvadorans head to the polls to choose who will lead their country for the next five years. The country entered a mandatory three-day silent period on Thursday in which no participating candidate or party may issue any kind of political statement or publish propaganda. According to polls released by El Salvador’s Central American University in January, 81.9 percent...

A man who came to the U.S. illegally and was subsequently deported four times allegedly killed a mother and her son in Colorado, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas, who is from El Salvador, was previously deported four times after initially sneaking into the country undetected, ICE said. Menjivar-Alas, 37, was charged with vehicular homicide reckless, vehicular homicide DUI and habitual traffic offender after he allegedly crashed his vehicle and killed 47-year-old Melissa Powell and her 16-year-old son, Riordan, on Dec. 12, according to the Broomfield Police Department. The accused...

The 72nd Annual MISS UNIVERSE PAGEANT will be broadcast LIVE from El Salvador on Saturday, November 18th on YouTube, Roku or Telemundo in the United States, starting at 8:00 PM ET. The pageant's owners, JKN Global Group, out of Thailand, just filed for bankruptcy last week. This year's pageant will go on as scheduled. I always watch this contest on Telemundo because Latin American countries take this pageant very seriously and do a great broadcasting the event. They even have a pre-show scheduled as well. Two trans women, Miss Portugal and Miss Netherlands, will be competing amongst the 84 candidates....

Democrats across Congress are calling on President Biden to allow Palestinians entry into the U.S. on humanitarian grounds as war drags on in Gaza. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., together with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Was., led a letter of 103 colleagues to the president asking him to grant the Palestinian territories Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and/or authorize Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Palestinians already living in the U.S. The TPS program allows those from war-torn or crisis-wracked countries to legally live and work in the U.S., but does not give them permanent residency. It allows...

El Salvador’s 2024 presidential election campaign officially began on Tuesday, with incumbent President Nayib Bukele poised to be reelected by an ample margin despite the nation’s constitution explicitly forbidding him from running. The election, slated for February 4, 2024, will see more than six million Salvadoran voters head to the polls and cast their votes to elect the country’s next president, vice president, and all 60 members of the Salvadoran Congress for the next five years.

The Guardian published an editorial criticizing El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for his hard crackdown on the violent gangs that terrorized the Latin nation for years because it does not address the root causes of the violence. The editorial said the government crackdown has resulted in positive results in making the country, once the most dangerous in the world, much safer, leading to historically high popularity for Bukele. People in neighboring countries are now demanding their governments copy Bukele's plan to tackle the gang and cartel problems. Still, The Guardian writes, the peace has come at a high price and...