The fusion center was created in May 2017 as part of a multinational initiative called Grupo Conjunto de Inteligencia Fronteriza, or GCIF, and funded through the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, which supports border security and police and military training programs in Central America as part of the U.S.-funded Central America Regional Security Initiative.

Very little is publicly known about the center, based in San Salvador, but in testimony before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee in January 2018, Richard H. Glenn, then an acting deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau, said that several Salvadoran police officers had been sent to the border in McAllen, Texas, for eight months in 2017 to “conduct research and report information to DHS” and to “help DHS, state and local law enforcement identify, arrest or deny entry to gang members.”