El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has announced a bold initiative to offer 5,000 free passports, valued at $5 billion in its passport program, to highly skilled individuals including scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and philosophers from abroad.
Bukele outlined the rationale behind this decision in a post on X, emphasizing that granting citizenship to individuals who meet this criteria is not an issue because they represent less than 0.1% of the country’s population.
“Despite the small number, their contributions will have a huge impact on our society and the future of our country,” Bukele said in his post on X. “Plus, we will facilitate their relocation by ensuring 0% taxes and tariffs on moving families and assets. This includes commercial value items like equipment, software, and intellectual property.”
The individuals who receive these benefits will also be granted "full citizenship status, including voting rights."
This initiative comes amid President Bukele's broader efforts to attract foreign investment and stimulate economic growth in El Salvador. Last month, the country's congress approved a reform bill aimed at incentivizing investment by removing income tax on money earned from abroad, as reported by News 18. Lawmakers anticipate that this tax exemption will encourage greater flows of foreign capital into the country.
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and has a population of less than 6 million. Since Bukele took office in 2019, the murder rate has dropped to the lowest levels in the region. He took a no tolerance approach to gang violence and the prisons are full of gang members.
Last February, Bukele attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC where he warned about the consequences of globalism.
"They say globalism comes to die a CPAC," Bukele said at the conference. "I'm here to tell you that in El Salvador, it's already dead. But if you want globalism to die here too, you must be willing to unapologetically fight against everything and everyone that stands for it."
