El Salvador’s arrest of an anticorruption lawyer from a well-known human rights organization last month is the latest example of how the special powers given to President Nayib Bukele to battle gangs are being applied to a host of unrelated alleged crimes.

Human rights organizations, politicians and experts have sharply criticized a law approved by El Salvador’s Congress this week that seeks to limit foreign influence and corruption.

Senate Republicans have blocked a Democratic resolution to require more transparency from the Trump administration about deportations to El Salvador.

A 2-year-old girl has arrived in Venezuela to reunite with her mother after she was separated from her parents when they were deported from the U.S. The South American country had denounced the move as a kidnapping.

The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has become a household name as the Trump administration wages an intense legal battle to keep him locked up in an El Salvador prison despite his mistaken deportation.

Authorities in Tennessee have released video of a 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in the coming weeks on a resolution to require more transparency from President Donald Trump’s administration about deportations to El Salvador.

A federal judge has again directed the Trump administration to provide information about efforts to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison.

President Donald Trump says “I could” bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador if he wanted.

A federal judge nominated by President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to facilitate the return of a man who was deported to El Salvador despite having a pending asylum application.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is the latest judge at odds with the Trump administration.

A federal judge has temporarily halted her order directing the government to explain what it’s done to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis came Wednesday evening, just one day after she blasted the administration for ignoring her orders by refusing to provide information.

A federal judge says the Trump administration is ignoring court orders, obstructing the legal process and acting in “bad faith” by refusing to provide information about the steps they have taken, if any, to free a mistakenly deported man from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. Tuesday's order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis gives the Trump administration until Wednesday evening to explain exactly why officials think the information should be considered protected state...

Four House Democrats are visiting El Salvador in a bid to support Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man whom the Trump administration deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the United States his government has kept imprisoned for who he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela.

Three former senior advisers to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are decrying what they called “baseless attacks” after each was escorted from the Pentagon in an expanding probe on information leaks.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported, told him he has been moved from the notorious Salvadoran prison known as CECOT to a detention center with better conditions.

The Supreme Court has blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.

U.S. officials say a new intelligence assessment finds no coordination between the Tren de Aragua gang and the Venezuelan government.

A federal appeals court says it is “shocking” that The Trump administration claims it can’t do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday unanimously refused to suspend a judge’s decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot has been asked to resign following a contentious start for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's communications office.

President Donald Trump’s administration faced yet another threat of contempt of court proceedings on Wednesday over deportations to El Salvador.

A federal judge’s ruling that the Trump administration appears to have willfully violated his order to turn around planes of migrants headed for El Salvador increases the prospect of officials being held in criminal contempt of court and potentially facing possible prosecution.

A federal judge says he's found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court and could seek officials’ prosecution for violating his orders last month to turn around planes carrying deportees to an El Salvador prison.

A federal judge says she will order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

President Donald Trump keeps talking about sending U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador.

President Donald Trump’s top advisers and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele say that they have no basis for the small Central American nation to return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported there last month.

The Trump administration is doubling down on its decision not to tell a federal court whether it has any plans to repatriate a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported last month and remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Federal judges in New York and Texas ruled Friday that temporary restraining orders in place to stop the removal of Venezuelans from the U.S. would be expanded to protect more people in both states.

President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is playing out in hearings in key cases.

Lawyers for the Trump administration say they are unable to provide information on the location and status of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The Supreme Court says the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The Justice Department has moved to drop a criminal case against the alleged East Coast leader of the MS-13 gang less than a month after he was charged, saying they plan to deport him instead.

Chief Justice John Roberts has agreed to pause a midnight deadline for the Trump administration to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

A federal judge says the U_S_ government’s decision to arrest a Maryland man and send him to a notorious prison in El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless.”.

The Trump administration is asking an appeals court to suspend a judge's order for the government to broker the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported from the U.S. to a notorious El Salvador prison.

Costa Rica’s security minister has begun a visit to El Salvador to study the measures it has taken to reduce violence caused by its powerful street gangs.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to arrange for the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison.

In the 22 days since Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to a notoriously violent prison in El Salvador, his young autistic son has sought comfort in the scent of his missing father’s clothes.

President Donald Trump's administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland man with protected legal status to a notorious El Salvador prison.

The Trump administration says it has deported 17 more “violent criminals” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs to El Salvador, as it doubles down on a policy of removing people from the U.S. to third countries despite criticism over lack of transparency and human rights protections.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, while a court fight continues.

A federal appeals court won’t lift an order barring the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law.

The Trump administration is invoking a powerful tool in seeking to cut off a judge’s inquiry into whether it defied his order to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants being deported from the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has visited the high-security El Salvador prison where Venezuelans who the Trump administration alleges are members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have been held since their removal from the U_S_ Noem’s trip Wednesday to the prison where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside comes as the Trump administration seeks to show it is deporting people it describes as the “worst of the worst.”.

The U.S. government used an 18th-century wartime law to deport nearly 300 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, where they were immediately transferred to the country’s maximum-security gang prison.

Lawyers hired by the Venezuelan government have filed a legal action in El Salvador aimed at freeing 238 Venezuelans deported by the United States.

The Trump administration has invoked a “state secrets privilege” and refused to give a federal judge any additional information about the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador — a case that has become a flashpoint amid escalating tension with the federal courts.

The Justice Department is resisting a federal judge’s demand for more information about flights that took deportees to El Salvador.

Weekend flights by U.S. immigration authorities set off a frantic scramble among terrified families after hundreds of immigrants disappeared from the government's online locator for detainees.

President Donald Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime law to deport hundreds of immigrants, most of them Venezuelans, to a prison in El Salvador has led to a showdown with the judiciary.

A federal judge on Monday was incredulous at the contention by the Trump administration that his directive to turn around deportation flights wasn't binding because it was made verbally.

The crown jewel of El Salvador’s aggressive anti-crime strategy is a mega-prison where visitation, recreation and education are not allowed.

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members.

El Salvador is agreeing to accept from the United States about 300 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang for one year.

The Associated Press' U.S. immigration news editor, Elliot Spagat, was joined by Rebecca Santana, who covers the Department of Homeland Security, and Christopher Sherman, who is the news director for Mexico and Central America, to talk about their coverage during an Ask-Me-Anything conversation on Reddit.

El Salvador has offered to take in people deported from the U.S. for entering the country illegally as well as the country’s violent criminals — even if they’re American citizens.

The Trump administration and the president of El Salvador said they struck a deal allowing the U.S. to ship detained migrants and imprisoned criminals to a mega-prison there.

President Donald Trump says he is exploring whether he can send American criminals jailed in the “most severe cases” to be incarcerated in other countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has left El Salvador with an agreement from that country’s president to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.

Former El Salvador President Mauricio Funes, who spent the final years of his life in Nicaragua to avoid various criminal sentences, died late Tuesday.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele is triumphant about his big bet on bitcoin as the cryptocurrency reached historic highs, surpassing $100,000 for the first time.

Tropical Storm Sara formed Thursday afternoon just 50 miles east of Honduras, drifting slowly along the country’s northern coast on Friday, spreading torrential rainfall across not only Honduras, but through Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, western Nicaragua, and eastern portions of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

The refugee organization, the International Rescue Committee, is testing some artificial intelligence tools to try to increase the number of displaced people they can reach with critical information.

A Miami-based professor is warning that heightened deportation efforts under potential Trump administration policies could impact over a million immigrants in Florida alone, with local communities and families facing serious consequences.

More than 2,000 soldiers and 500 police officers surrounded a dense neighborhood on the outskirts of El Salvador’s capital in an effort to quash the remnants of gangs the president said were trying to set up shop in the area.

Detectives are searching for the gunman who killed Robin Hernandez, a father who worked in construction. The gunman also wounded his friend David Pichinte, who remained hospitalized.

A rights report says the government of El Salvador has arrested 3,319 underage suspects and sentenced 579 during the harsh 2 1/2 year-old crackdown on street gangs.

The human rights organization Cristosal says at least 261 people have died in prisons in El Salvador during President Nayib Bukele’s 2 1/2-year-old crackdown on street gangs.

The death toll from torrential rains and landslides in El Salvador has risen to 19.

The president of Honduras has announced the creation of a new 20,000-capacity “megaprison.”.

The Biden administration has sent a high-level delegation to El Salvador to attend President Nayib Bukele's inauguration to a second term.

El Salvador’s lawmakers have granted a request by President Nayib Bukele for the 24th consecutive one-month extension of an anti-gang emergency decree.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has received a rock-star welcome at a conservative gathering outside Washington as he urged people to “unapologetically fight” against what he called “dark forces.”.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas party have won the supermajority the leader needs in Congress to govern as he pleases.

As El Salvador’s electoral body begins a vote-by-vote count of the country’s elections last week, the political opposition warned they could ask to nullify results of the legislative elections due to irregularities.

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator” or as his X profile read on election day, the “Philosopher King.”.

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele is savoring what appears to be a landslide presidential reelection victory.

Salvadorans are packing the capital’s central square to celebrate the expected reelection of Nayib Bukele as president even before any official results from Sunday's election have been announced.

To many, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is a national hero who took on the country’s violent gangs with an unrelenting hand.

Félix Ulloa, temporarily on leave as El Salvador’s vice president while he runs for reelection alongside Nayib Bukele, has denied accusations that their administration has made undemocratic moves to consolidate power.

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele has taken his presidential reelection campaign beyond the tiny Central American country’s borders to capitalize on his rising profile across Latin America.

Bitcoin is once again having a moment.

Thousands of detainees swept up in El Salvador's gang crackdown over the past 1 1/2 years have been released from pre-trial detention.

Nicaragua’s increasingly isolated and repressive government thought it had scored a rare public relations victory last week when Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition.

Miss Nicaragua, Sheynnis Palacios, has won the Miss Universe competition in El Salvador, the first to wear the crown from her country.

The Miss Universe competition hosted by El Salvador is the latest spectacle touted by President Nayib Bukele in his efforts to change the reputation of his historically violence-torn nation.

Police in El Salvador have arrested 10 people accused of operating a migrant smuggling ring.

Tropical Storm Pilar is lashing Central America with heavy rains that have already been blamed for two deaths in El Salvador as it meanders off the Pacific coast.

Heavy rain from Tropical Storm Pilar has already caused two deaths in El Salvador as it meanders off the Pacific coast.

With tattoo-covered faces, wearing white shirts and shorts, gang members captured during El Salvador’s state of exception are gradually filling the country’s new mega prison.

A new ferry line for commerce moving through Central America began operating Thursday, directly connecting El Salvador and Costa Rica to the exclusion of Nicaragua and Honduras.

A funeral home in El Salvador has taken Barbie mania to an extreme, offering pink coffins with Barbie linings.

The State Department says it's imposing sanctions on two former Salvadoran presidents and dozens of other officials and judges in Central America.

Honduras plans to build the only island prison colony in the Western Hemisphere and send its most-feared gangsters there.

Over the past 15 months, El Salvador’s security forces have jailed tens of thousands of people in a massive crackdown on the country’s notorious gangs.

Five soccer club executives and stadium officials arrested for their alleged roles in the stampede at an El Salvador league game that left nine fans dead and dozens injured will avoid prison by making payments to the injured and relatives of dead.

Police in El Salvador have arrested the president of soccer club Alianza, as well as other club officials and stadium personnel, in connection with a stampede that left 12 fans dead last weekend.

Officials and witnesses say that fans angry at being blocked from entering a Salvadoran soccer league match knocked down an entrance gate to the stadium, leading to a crush that killed 12 people and injured dozens.