When Donald Trump took control of the US mass deportation machine, with its private detention networks, racist policing, and militarized borders, he found it well oiled. Obama, the “Deporter In Chief,” managed to forcefully expel more than 3 million people from US territory, more than all his predecessors combined. When the influx of unaccompanied Central American minors drew national attention at the US-Mexico border, Obama outsourced the problem to Mexico, which now deports more Central Americans than the United States.

Trump, however, has managed to do plenty of damage of his own, striking down the meager protections that Obama had conceded, and making the demonization of immigrants a cornerstone of his administration’s discourse. His disparagement of Latinos has earned him the status of both laughingstock and cartoon supervillain in households across the hemisphere. Trump’s overt racism has even provoked tensions with Mexico, otherwise a staunch collaborator in the US-led militarization of the region and criminalization of migrants.

Salvadorans have been the target of particularly repugnant attacks, with the administration using dehumanizing depictions of scowling, tattooed MS-13 gang members to stigmatize immigrants and justify escalating enforcement. Indeed, for a country the size of Maryland with a population of less than 7 million, El Salvador has borne a disproportionate share of Trump’s anti-immigrant offensive.