Maria Elvira Salazar Demands INL Innovation: The Bureau ‘Needs To Be Modernized’

3/27/2025

During Thursday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Maria Elivira Salazar (R-FL) questioned witnesses about INL modernization.

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Transcript

00:00And thank you, Mr. Isakson. And now, for your testimony, I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning.

00:08And I am delighted to hear, Mr. Isakson, that you believe certain quotes here that INL needs to be modernized,

00:19needs to be reformed, and that maybe they are just following some of the precepts of the 1980s.

00:26But specifically, I agree that they need to be reorganized and there needs to be some revamp.

00:36But let's go to the last four years.

00:40Do you really believe that talking to the Guatemalans and to the Salvadorians about gender ideology or the pronouns

00:47or how you can – there are many genders.

00:51Do you really think that talking to them was going to make the United States and themselves safer?

00:58Safer? I mean, you were going to keep people home?

01:02So explain how one thing comes to link to the other.

01:06I would like to know what percentage of the program actually was about gender and identity and things like that.

01:11If it's – we don't have that data.

01:13The main focus, the Guatemalans were complaining.

01:16In terms of dollar amounts?

01:18There was, of course, an intense of political willingness and desire to infiltrate these forces with our ideology,

01:26the American Biden administration ideology.

01:29Don't you think that it's – that it was – we did a disservice to them and to us?

01:34If you're fighting human trafficking where most victims are women –

01:38Yeah, how can you be talking about sex when you're trying to fight human trafficking?

01:42How do you do that?

01:43I just need to know how much of the programming really did go in that direction

01:47instead of like Joint Task Force Alpha in Guatemala, which was fighting human smugglers.

01:51Ask the Guatemalans. The Guatemalans, perfect example.

01:54They hated a lady by the name of Consuelo Porras.

01:57Do I know her? No, I don't.

01:59But I know that she's the AG of the country, so why don't we work with her?

02:02Oh, because she's too conservative.

02:04Who are we to say that to the Guatemalans? Why?

02:09I don't know if Consuelo Porras is hated –

02:11No, everything I'm saying is quoted. Consuelo Porras is detested.

02:14Oh, I think she is detested.

02:16It was okay, but who are we, the Americans, to come and say,

02:19oh, Consuelo is not the person that you need to work with? She's the AG.

02:22I've never heard that she was held at arm's length because she favored free markets or like –

02:27She was too conservative.

02:29Because she was conservative, because of significant corruption, according to what I saw.

02:32You know what I'm telling you, so please, help me understand why the Biden administration

02:37wanted to concentrate its resources, when he talks to reforming and securing the Salvadorian Guatemalan police,

02:46concentrated on something that had nothing to do with national security for the United States.

02:52My impression was that INL and the Justice Department worked very hard with,

02:56not with Consuelo, but with the rest of the public ministry in Guatemala

03:01on something called Joint Task Force Alpha,

03:03which was a big effort to get at the nodes of the network of migrant smuggling,

03:07and they've actually taken out a lot of migrant smugglers,

03:09working with the Attorney General's office in Guatemala in the last few years,

03:12and the Trump administration is expanding that.

03:14Did you know this would give money to the NGOs in Guatemala to help the migrants go,

03:18have a smoother ride while they were going through Guatemala and getting to Mexico?

03:22I think that would have been illegal in Guatemala,

03:25where they actually arrest and deport more than 20,000, 30,000 migrants a year back into Honduras.

03:31Nine million went through it.

03:33Yeah, a lot do get through.

03:34Let's go to El Salvador.

03:36Bukele, what do you think, what's your, what ranking do you give to Bukele from one to ten?

03:42I would give him, I would give him a four, perhaps.

03:46I think he's a brilliant communicator, but I do worry about checks and balances.

03:49What about the communicator? What has he done with the country?

03:52He has put 3% of the male population in prison,

03:55which, yeah, by doing so did eradicate, for now, a lot of the gangs.

03:59I do worry about the future of democracy.

04:00And you and I agreed that if there's one innocent guy in the CICUT,

04:03I was the first one who told him, you've got to get him out,

04:05because we don't want innocent people in jail.

04:07But the thing is that, you know, CICUT is full of people who are full of tattoos

04:11that are revealing who they were and what they did.

04:13You know, each drop meant one murder.

04:16So, do you think he did something right?

04:19If these people were facing judges, and if their families knew what was going on with them,

04:26it would be right.

04:27It would be right.

04:28But right now, almost everybody there is pretrial,

04:30and there's not even dates for most of their trials.

04:33So, yeah, they need a fair shake.

04:35I mean, it was right to clean up the streets.

04:37I agree with you that everyone needs due process. Yes, sir.

04:39That's just not happening right now.

04:41All right. But what about us working with him?

04:43Maybe if INL would have done its job, then Bukele would have been able to really help.

04:48We would help him to do a better job, don't you think?

04:51You're talking about diversity and inclusion and pronouns.

04:56I think one of INL's biggest obstacles actually there is, and I actually support it,

05:01is language that both Republicans and Democrats put in the foreign aid bill

05:05saying that half of aid, I believe it's half, to El Salvador is cut

05:09until they can certify that the human rights situation is good and is improving.

05:13And right now, more than 300 people dying in the jails in the last three years

05:17and widespread allegations of torture.

05:19It's been hard to certify that.

05:20What happens to the human rights of the people who were outside being killed by those gang members,

05:25which is why he got 90 percent of transparent and internationally observed elections.

05:32We agree with that.

05:33Oh, yeah, if I was a shopkeeper being extorted.

05:34The Salvadorians love the guy, so why do we have to hate him?

05:36Who are we to say to this guy, don't do it that way?

05:39I think we're just worried about what it's going to look like in five years.

05:41But, yeah, right now, if I'm a shopkeeper who had to pay—

05:44Don't you think that they should be concerned about what they're going to be looking like five years from now?

05:48That's their concern, not ours.

05:50We're here to help them have a better police force.

05:53All right, you agree with that, right?

05:55We're certainly here to help them have a better police force,

05:57but we don't want to be funding abuses in the short term.

06:00I think that I am exceeding my time.

06:04I yield back.

06:05Now I'm going to recognize the ranking member for five minutes.

Maria Elvira Salazar Demands INL Innovation: The Bureau ‘Needs To Be Modernized’

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