'The Rhetoric is So Toxic': Newsom Tours El Salvador as Trump Moves to End Aid There

SAN SALVADOR — Gov. Gavin Newsom touched down in El Salvador on Sunday to begin a three-day trip designed to contrast his own approach to immigration with that of his political foe, President Donald Trump.

The differences are not subtle.

Trump had just visited California’s southern border to announce, “Our country is full. ... We can’t take you anymore, I’m sorry, can’t happen. So turn around, that’s the way it is."

His State Department last week moved to cut off all foreign aid, more than $450 million, to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as punishment for what he described as their failure to halt the exodus of people there heading to the United States. And on Monday, the president announced the resignation of his Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, a move widely interpreted as a sign of a further immigration crackdown.

“The rhetoric is so toxic coming out of the White House and it impacts people here in a very real way,” Newsom said, after landing in San Salvador. “I think having a counternarrative, which is one of respect of the human condition and talks about the morality and ethics of calling people invaders.”

His trip, he added, “sends a message.”

His first international trip as governor, Newsom is visiting El Salvador to explore the roots of migration that are driving thousands of people to the U.S.-Mexico border from the Northern Triangle region of Central America. He plans to meet with the Salvadoran president and the president-elect, as well as the U.S. ambassador and humanitarian and gang intervention advocates.

The smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, El Salvador, is afflicted with a high poverty rate and has long been one of the most violent countries in the world, with the gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18 exerting a alarming degree of control.

On Sunday, Newsom’s motorcade sped through the streets of El Salvador’s capital city towards the Metropolitan Cathedral, where he visited the tomb of Saint Oscar Romero, an archbishop known for his work fighting poverty and violence who was assassinated in the 1980 and is considered a civil rights hero. The governor lit a candle alongside his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo of Los Angeles, herself a Salvadoran immigrant.

San Salvador Mayor Ernesto Muyshondt joined the church tour as an opportunity to share his concern about losing U.S. aid money — a resource he credits for helping decrease the level of violence in the country and for funding diversion programs for kids.

“We are grateful for the governor’s positions in defense of our people,” he said. “It’s important for us, for him to see the efforts we are trying, to make our city and country more secure and to make it so our people can find more opportunities here.”

Newsom would not say if California would help fund programs in El Salvador, but stressed that partnership, trade and private investment are ways to help boost economic opportunities.

“We have human resources that can help with stabilizing this part of the world that we share so many individuals in common with,” Newsom said.

Critics back home have said the governor should first focus on fixing the problems in California, including dirty water, flooding, fire damage and other challenges.

And President Trump, during his border visit, emphasized the danger resulting when “rough, tough people” with criminal records seek asylum.

“Gov. Newsom, honestly, is living in a different world,” the president continued. “That’s a very dangerous world he’s living in. And if he keeps living there? Lots of problems for the people of California. They don’t want that. They want to be secure. They want to be safe.”

Fielding questions from reporters, Newsom defended his trip, saying it is his “responsibility” to understand what is happening because California is home to the largest community of Salvadorans outside of El Salvador.

“You want to end the ‘crisis’ on the border?” he said. “Stabilize these countries, create economic opportunity and you end the crisis. You don’t have to spend money militarizing your border, you don’t have to build a border wall. You spend a tenth of the money on stabilizing the community as opposed to this. That’s why I say it’s just manufactured, pure political theater.”

Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York, said it’s appropriate for the governor to visit El Salvador given California’s demographics and progressive leanings.

“California has taken a different approach to all of its residents — which includes Salvadorans, who have come from there and have family there — than the federal government has,” Kerwin said. “You have to address root causes which are the conditions which are driving this, and you also have to create some opportunities for really desperate people to migrate legally.”

Rosa Hernandez and her granddaughter were unshed out of the cathedral when it was cleared for Newsom’s visit, but lingered near the entrance.

Hernandez, 54, said she doesn’t have enough money to try to go to the United States but knows many people who have left because they can’t find work and are fleeing the violent conditions here. All six of her children are grown now, but she still worries about them.

“When they go out, you don’t know if they are going to come back, if they are going to live or die, but I have to trust in God,” she said. “The only thing that anyone can do to help, is to help improve security here, because nobody does anything about it.”

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