A group of 2,000 detainees are moved to CECOT on March 15, 2023. Photo: Getty Images.
By Ximena Hasbach – May 22, 2025
Donald Trump’s war on immigrants has been a cornerstone of his second term in office. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has been a key ally in a deportation campaign that has reached new levels of brutality—the Trump administration is paying Bukele’s government to disappear deported migrants inside the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), Latin America’s largest prison notorious for human rights abuses and a complete lack of transparency.
Bukele’s police state
Bukele became president of El Salvador in 2019. His presidency was quickly marked by his clashes with the other branches of government, such as when he forged a public narrative against the country’s Legislative Assembly in 2020 after they rejected his extension of the state of emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed Bukele to “execute a budget at his discretion to empower security forces to generate tensions, use lethal force to persecute those who violate[d] lockdown measures, or quarantine in containment centers.” Bukele stormed the Legislative Assembly that year with armed soldiers and police in an effort to have them approve the financing of police militarization. Bukele began his campaign of mass incarceration in 2020, arresting thousands of people for the crime of violating quarantine.
In 2021, Bukele’s far-right political alliance won 61 of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly, giving him basically uncontested power. He declared a state of emergency in March 2022, which has been renewed every month since then. The state of emergency meant the suspension of constitutional rights in the country and the arrest of tens of thousands of people within months and without the right to due process or legal defense. All of this was under the guise of fighting gangs, which, in El Salvador, are classified as terrorist organizations. CECOT began holding prisoners in 2023, and today, 1 out of every 57 people in El Salvador are imprisoned. This is a higher rate of incarceration than that of the United States.
Conditions at CECOT
Inmates of this mega-prison are forced to live in abysmal conditions. There are 32 cells in each building of the eight-building CECOT. Each measures 1,075sq ft, about the size of a two-car garage, and is meant to hold more than 100 inmates, according to Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez. However there are only 80 bunks per cell, in the form of stacked metal shelves, with no mattresses, no blankets or sheets. There are only two sinks and two toilets per cell. The lights are never turned off. The prisoners are allowed no more than half an hour a day outside the cells for exercise in the corridors, for video conference-only legal hearings, or to be punished in windowless, unlit isolation cells.
Plates of food are stacked outside the cells at mealtimes and pulled through the bars. No utensils are provided, and prisoners must eat with their hands.
Prisoners do not work, nor are they allowed contact with the outside world. They are not allowed books or letters from home or visits with family or friends.
Renting a torture center
One important tactic in Donald Trump’s war on immigrants has been to label them criminals, terrorists and gang members in order to manufacture consent for their brutalization, deportation and imprisonment. The Venezuelan community has been a major target for this campaign of demonization, with the Trump administration making unsubstantiated claims that the 238 Venezuelans who were deported to CECOT under the 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, had ties to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that no longer functions. These migrants were deported even after a federal judge had ordered the halting of the deportations. Trump attempted to justify the illegal deportation and imprisonment of these migrants using an anti-communist slandering of the democratically elected government of Nicholas Maduro, claiming that Maduro himself directed Tren de Aragua to commit an “invasion” of the United States. These claims were quickly debunked.
Trump has paid Bukele’s government nearly $5 million to imprison deported migrants. A total of $15 million dollars in payments have been approved so far. The government of El Salvador is being paid per prisoner. This information was revealed from emails exchanged between Michael Needham, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s chief of staff, and Bukele’s brother. The emails include language like “(El Salvador) will provide (US government) a 50% discount for Year 2.” Beyond discussing terms of payment for imprisoning the Venezuelan migrants, the emails between Bukele and Rubio’s offices also included language around the possibility of the US financing additional prisons in El Salvador in the future. This comes after Trump told Bukele that he needed to build “about five more places” to imprison “the homegrowns,” i.e. US citizens, during Bukele’s visit to the White House in April.
Working people stand with those sent to CECOT
The Trump administration’s use of the Salvadoran system of mass incarceration has drawn wide criticism. Inside the United States, immigrants and non-immigrants alike have taken to the streets demanding an end to ICE raids and deportations, the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and union member who lived in Maryland for 14 years before his arrest, after having fled gang violence in his hometown in El Salvador. On March 12, Abrego Garcia was stopped by police on his way home, while his 5-year-old son was in the car with him. He was taken to a detention center in Baltimore, where ICE agents accused him of being a member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia was subsequently deported to CECOT, despite having protected status in the US, in what the Trump administration later admitted was a mistake. The Supreme Court has ordered the facilitation of his return, but the Trump administration has ignored this order and has never provided evidence of Abrego Garcia’s supposed gang affiliation.
A Maryland judge ordered Trump to bring forth their plan to secure Abrego Garcia’s release by Monday, May 5. This deadline has passed, and on May 7, Trump invoked state secrets privilege in order to avoid providing details about the deportation flights which illegally sent Abrego Garcia and other immigrant community members to CECOT. Abrego Garcia’s legal team stated on May 8 that they were still “in the dark about the government’s efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody and return to the United States.” The fight for Abrego Garcia’s release continues in the streets and in the courtroom—Jennifer Vasquez, Abrego Garcia’s wife, spoke at the May Day rally in Washington DC, and a group of labor leaders published a letter demanding his return. It is clear that communities across the country—from the labor movement to the immigrant rights movement and beyond—will not rest until Abrego Garcia and other community members abducted and sent to CECOT are home.
