After three days of interviews and site visits across El Salvador, this article examines how sweeping emergency powers reshaped daily life, business, and public safety in a country once dominated by gang violence.

Just three years ago, El Salvador was labeled the “murder capital of the world,” with the highest homicide rate per capita of any country. El Salvador effectively operated under de facto gang rule, where criminal organizations exercised territorial control through systematic violence, extortion, and intimidation. 

That reality has since shifted with unprecedented speed. Under President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador has launched one of the most aggressive security crackdowns in recent history, resulting in massive reductions in crime and intense international debate over civil liberties and constitutional governance.

Gang Rule and Collapse of State Authority

For decades, gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 dominated daily life across much of the country. Entire neighborhoods operated under gang rule. Residents paid routine extortion fees, businesses functioned at the pleasure of criminal groups, and violence was both pervasive and normalized. At its peak, the country recorded approximately 6,656 homicides per year in a nation of just 6.3 million people, placing El Salvador among the deadliest countries on earth.

The crisis reached a breaking point in March 2022, when gangs killed 87 people over a three-day period, in some cases leaving bodies in public view. The killings marked a clear challenge to state authority and triggered a decisive response from the Bukele administration.

The State of Exception

In March 2022, President Bukele invoked a nationwide “state of exception.” The decree dramatically expanded law enforcement powers, allowing authorities to arrest individuals suspected of gang membership or affiliation. It also suspended certain constitutional protections, including due process, as part of an emergency framework aimed at dismantling gang networks at scale.

What followed was one of the most aggressive domestic security crackdowns in modern Latin American history. Originally authorized by El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly for a period of 30 days, the nationwide “state of exception” has since been renewed on a monthly basis more than 35 times. 

During the first six months alone, over 52,000 arrests were made. In the first three years of the policy, over 84,000 people have been detained based on suspected involvement in criminal gang activity.

Many gang members are imprisoned in El Salvador’s “Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo,” or CECOT, which is a high-security mega-prison at the center of President Bukele’s national security crackdown strategy. Completed in February 2023, CECOT has capacity for 40,000 prisoners and spans 23-hectares. Across all of its prisons, El Salvador now has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates. 

A satellite view of CECOT, a high-security prison central to President Bukele’s anti-gang strategy. (Source: Google Earth)

Security Gains and Change

These mass arrests have produced sweeping effects across Salvadoran society. According to Salvadoran officials, the country’s homicide rate declined by over 98 percent between 2015 and 2024. The national homicide rate fell from 53.1 homicides per 100,000 people in 2018, the year before President Bukele took office, to 1.9 homicides per 100,000 people in 2024.

The security improvements have also translated into positive economic and social impacts.

Improved public safety has coincided with increased consumer confidence and a resurgence in tourism. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, El Salvador recorded a 35 percent increase in visitors in 2023 compared to 2019. This growth ranked El Salvador as the fourth fastest-growing tourism destination globally and the fastest-growing in the Americas. 

But El Salvador’s aggressive crackdown on criminal gangs has also generated substantial criticism, both domestically and internationally. Human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, have repeatedly condemned the Bukele Administration for the continued renewal of the nationwide “state of exception,” accusing the government of facilitating a systematic and widespread pattern of state abuse, including thousands of arbitrary detentions.

President Bukele has publicly acknowledged that innocent individuals were detained during the implementation of the emergency measures. At the same time, he has defended the policy’s necessity and assured “we are going to free 100 percent of the innocent people.”

Power, Popularity, and the Road Ahead

Despite concerns from human rights organizations, President Bukele and his crackdown on criminal gangs have remained highly popular throughout the country. His approval rating has consistently exceeded 80 percent since taking office in 2019 and reached 85 percent in a recent May 2025 poll.

That political support has translated into electoral dominance. In February 2024, President Bukele secured re-election with nearly 85 percent of the vote. His political party simultaneously captured a 54-seat supermajority in the 60-seat Legislative Assembly, consolidating legislative control and enabling the continued renewal of emergency powers.

President Bukele’s commanding re-election occurred despite longstanding constitutional prohibitions on consecutive presidential terms. In 2021, a reconstituted Supreme Court reinterpreted the Salvadoran Constitution to permit presidential re-election, clearing the legal path for President Bukele’s successful 2024 campaign. In July 2025, the Legislative Assembly went further, formally abolishing presidential term limits altogether and authorizing indefinite re-election.

This steady expansion of executive power has prompted a number of international organizations and commentators to characterize Bukele as a “dictator.” Public opinion data, however, presents a sharply different picture domestically. According to polling conducted by LPG Datos in May 2025, only 1.4 percent of Salvadorans reported that the consolidation of executive power in a single individual was problematic.

On the ground in El Salvador, public sentiment appears driven less by constitutional theory than by lived experience. Many Salvadorans describe a profound shift in daily life following the dismantling of gang control. In a country that is now largely free from gang presence, improved security has translated into new opportunities for business, employment, and community life.

Oscar, an Uber driver and small business owner in his 40s, frames the country’s recent transformation through both personal loss and economic recovery. 

He left the country in 2014 after his father was killed by gang members following repeated extortion demands tied to the family’s gas station, which he said amounted to roughly $200 per month. Oscar spent eleven years outside of El Salvador before returning for the first time in November 2024.

Now living in a coastal town in El Salvador, he describes the current security environment as markedly different, saying gang activity in his area has disappeared. Since returning, Oscar has opened an Airbnb and helped revive a family restaurant originally founded by his grandmother, which closed during the height of gang control. 

While he acknowledged that some El Salvadoreans have concerns over concentrated executive power, he supports the security policies of President Bukele, citing improved safety, renewed business activity, and rising property values.

Similar themes emerge in conversations with longtime residents. 

Antonio, a clothing business owner in his 30s who has lived in El Salvador his entire life, describes the change as stark and deeply personal. During the years of gang control, he paid approximately $15 per month in extortion and says he was often afraid to walk out in public due to gang violence.

Today, Antonio says that fear is gone. He credits President Bukele for the improvements in security and hopes Bukele stays in power. 

In just three years, El Salvador has undergone a transformation few countries have achieved in modern times, shifting from a society dominated by criminal gangs to one in which residents can walk freely, operate businesses, and participate in community life without extortion and violence. For many Salvadorans, the restoration of basic safety has taken priority over longer-term institutional and constitutional concerns.

As a result, President Bukele and his security policies remain highly popular across the country. With the legal ability to seek re-election indefinitely now in place, El Salvador’s political future is increasingly tied to President Bukele himself.