In perhaps the most shocking announcement from a Latin-American leader in recent memory, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, admitted Sunday that his country is at fault for the deaths of its citizens attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.

The announcement received little attention at first, but a newly released video of the Bukele actually issuing the statement has prompted more interest.

“We can blame any other country, but what about our blame?” Bukele told the BBC. “What country did they flee? Did they flee the United States? They fled El Salvador, they fled our country. It is our fault.”

By issuing such a statement, Bukele effectively absolved Trump of any guilt the American left and establishment media had heaped on him since the heartbreaking photo of a father and young daughter found drowned in the Rio Grande as they tried to cross to American soil.

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This is important because the media narrative against Trump has increasingly focused on what amounts to a humanitarian crisis on the border.

Ironically, it was the left and the establishment media that refused to admit the existence of a crisis for months.

The Democrat-controlled Congress also defeated over a dozen attempts to provide funding for humanitarian relief and increased security at the border.

Now, as the left’s narrative has transformed — as leftist narratives are wont to do — Trump has become not just a heartless xenophobe but an outright killer.

Don’t believe me? Witness Democratic presidential candidate Beto “I’m-totally-not-using-a-toddler’s-death-to-promote-my-own-campaign” O’Rourke’s tweet.

Trump is responsible for these deaths. https://t.co/UZirFjh3fm — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) June 26, 2019

And then there’s this gem too.

As his administration refuses to follow our laws — preventing refugees from presenting themselves for asylum at our ports of entry — they cause families to cross between ports, ensuring greater suffering & death. At the expense of our humanity, not to the benefit of our safety. — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) June 26, 2019

Two points to take away from this.

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First, the Salvadoran president’s open acceptance that his country is to blame for these, and other, border deaths is not only refreshingly honest but also hopeful.

No progress in staunching the flow of immigrants from Mexico and farther south will be made until leaders in those countries, states, cities and municipalities agree the fault is not in their stars and they unite to suppress violence, restore order, root out corruption and promote freedom.

Bukele’s admission is a step in the right direction. There’s absolutely no reason these nations need to look more like the hellscape of Venezuela than the modern, overwhelmingly prosperous Chile.

Second, Bukele’s comments put the lie to this particular anti-Trump narrative and the underlying racist charges. If Trump is racist for suggesting that the problem is not our border security but conditions south of the border, would Bukele have to be racist as well?

Of course that’s absurd, and that’s one of the biggest reasons the left will despise this announcement.

Sure, they’ll try to spin it into a validation of their never-ending demands for greater foreign aid, but that narrative goes nowhere right now.

Everyone’s fixed on the border and what’s happening to its south. Democrats want to stake their political fortunes there. That’s just fine with us. We have powerful allies in the American people, the U.S. Border Patrol, citizens who live on the border, oh, and El Salvador’s president.

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