The Trump administration promised to transfer key MS-13 leaders who were acting as informants on the gang in March as part of a deal for the U.S. to imprison hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, this spring, new reporting finds.

According to The Washington Post , Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele days before the administration would deport the immigrants to El Salvador to strike the deal. He pledged to Bukele that the U.S. would release nine MS-13 leaders to El Salvador. Some of these leaders were acting as informants to the U.S., and therefore had been given promises that they would be protected by the government.

For years, Bukele has sought to block witnesses from testifying on a

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