Where to Watch FRONTLINE’s Documentary on the Trump-Bukele CECOT Deal

Three months into President Donald Trump’s second term, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador opened the doors of his country’s notorious prison, CECOT, for planeloads of mostly Venezuelan U.S. deportees the Trump administration had swept up and accused of being gang members.

Despite revelations that most of the men had no criminal convictions in the U.S. or proven gang affiliations, as well as concerns about harsh treatment at CECOT, both presidents touted the move as a win.

Over the past year, FRONTLINE and reporters from the El Salvador news outlet El Faro have been investigating what was behind the controversial deal, and what each president stood to gain.

The team’s findings unfold in The Deal: Trump, Bukele & the Gangs of El Salvador, the newest documentary from director Juan Ravell and producer Jeff Arak, the duo behind the Emmy-nominated film A Dangerous Assignment.

To examine what underpinned the Salvadoran president’s deal with Trump, Ravell and Arak teamed up with El Faro journalists Carlos Martínez and Óscar Martínez, who exposed the Bukele government’s dealmaking with MS-13 and other violent gangs it claimed it was cracking down on.

“Bukele wants us in prison for having revealed something that upset him,” Óscar says of the reporting, which revealed evidence that Bukele’s administration had offered privileges to gang leaders in prison, in exchange for a reduction in homicides and voter support in territories the gangs controlled.

Bukele — who had publicly said that he would never negotiate with gangs because “you are giving them legitimacy” — claimed “El Faro lied” and said documents showing his administration’s dealings with gang leaders were “fake.” The Martínez brothers now live and report in exile.

“Nobody wakes up ready to become an exile and accept that the next time you see your country will be as an old man,” Carlos says in the film.

Through the brothers’ story, as well as the perspectives of other reporters, former U.S. officials and insiders, The Deal shines new light on Bukele’s tangled history with the gangs the U.S. is fighting. The documentary examines why Bukele offered to imprison U.S. deportees in CECOT — and why, in exchange, he asked that nine indicted MS-13 gang leaders in U.S. custody be returned to El Salvador, in what one reporter in the documentary calls “a deal within a deal.”

Bukele has said the Trump administration’s return of MS-13 members will help El Salvador “finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants” of the gang. But some observers suspect he had another motive: preventing gang leaders in U.S. custody from exposing the details of their past dealings with Bukele’s administration.

“The reality,” Óscar says in The Deal, “is that Bukele is trying to cover up his past.”

The Deal: Trump, Bukele & the Gangs of El Salvador premiered April 7, 2026, on PBS and online. Watch the documentary in full anytime at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on YouTube and on PBS Documentaries on Prime.