On this photograph offered by El Salvador’s presidential press workplace, jail guards switch deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Middle in Tecoluca, El Salvador, Sunday, March 16, 2025.
AP/El Salvador presidential press workplace
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AP/El Salvador presidential press workplace
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The crown jewel of El Salvador’s aggressive anti-crime technique — a mega-prison the place visitation, recreation and training should not allowed — grew to become the most recent software in U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration on Sunday, when a whole bunch of immigrants dealing with deportation had been transferred there.
The arrival of the immigrants, alleged by the U.S. to be members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, happened beneath an settlement for which the Trump administration pays the federal government of President Nayib Bukele $6 million for one 12 months of providers.
Bukele has made the Central American nation’s stark, harsh prisons a trademark of his combat towards crime. In 2023, he opened the Terrorism Confinement Middle, or CECOT, the place the immigrants had been despatched over the weekend at the same time as a federal decide issued an order quickly barring their deportations beneath an 18th century wartime declaration concentrating on Venezuelan gang members.
What’s the CECOT?
Bukele ordered the mega-prison constructed as he started his marketing campaign towards El Salvador’s gangs in March 2022. It opened a 12 months later within the city of Tecoluca, about 72 kilometers (45 miles) east of the capital.
The ability has eight sprawling pavilions and may maintain as much as 40,000 inmates. Every cell can match 65 to 70 prisoners.
CECOT prisoners don’t obtain visits and are by no means allowed outside. The jail doesn’t provide workshops or instructional applications to arrange them to return to society after their sentences.
Often, prisoners who’ve gained a degree of belief from jail officers give motivational talks. Prisoners sit in rows within the hall exterior their cells for the talks or are led by means of train regimens beneath the supervision of guards.
Bukele’s justice minister has mentioned that these held at CECOT would by no means return to their communities.
The jail’s eating halls, break rooms, fitness center and board video games are for guards.
What number of prisoners does El Salvador maintain?
The federal government would not repeatedly replace the determine, however the human rights group Cristosal reported that in March 2024 El Salvador had 110,000 folks behind bars, together with these sentenced to jail and people nonetheless awaiting trial. That is greater than double the 36,000 inmates that the federal government reported in April 2021, a 12 months earlier than Bukele ramped up his combat towards crime.
Cristosal and different advocates have accused authorities of human rights violations.
Cristosal reported final 12 months that no less than 261 folks had died in El Salvador’s prisons in the course of the gang crackdown. The group and others have cited instances of abuse, torture and lack of medical consideration.
In slickly produced movies, the federal government has proven CECOT prisoners in boxer shorts marching into frequent areas and made to take a seat practically atop one another. Cells lack sufficient bunks for everybody.
Why had been immigrants despatched to CECOT?
The migrants had been deported after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used solely 3 times in U.S. historical past.
The legislation requires a president to declare the U.S. is at warfare, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or take away foreigners who in any other case would have protections beneath immigration or legal legal guidelines. Trump claimed the Tren de Aragua gang was invading the U.S. in invoking the wartime authority.
Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless jail in Venezuela and accompanied an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom had been in search of higher dwelling situations after their nation’s financial system got here undone final decade.
The Trump administration has not recognized the migrants deported, offered any proof they’re in truth members of Tren de Aragua or that they dedicated any crimes within the U.S.
Video launched by El Salvador’s authorities Sunday confirmed males exiting airplanes into an airport tarmac lined by officers in riot gear. The lads, who had their palms and ankles shackled, struggled to stroll as officers pushed their heads right down to have them bend on the waist.
The video additionally confirmed the lads being transported to CECOT in a big convoy of buses guarded by police and navy autos and no less than one helicopter. The lads had been proven kneeling on the bottom as their heads had been shaved earlier than they became the jail’s all-white uniform – knee-length shorts, T-shirt, socks and rubber clogs – and positioned in cells.
