Some of the most violent gang members in El Salvador are locked away inside the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) where Trump could soon send US criminals
American criminals could be sent to El Salvador’s brutal mega-prisons after an unprecedented migrant deal.
US President Donald Trump responded to an offer by El Salvador and said: “It’s no different than our prison system, except it would be a lot less expensive, and it would be a great deterrent.”
President Nayib Bukele had proposed to take people deported from the US, regardless of nationality, and put them in prisons like the Terrorism Confinement Center ( CECOT). Speaking about the collaboration, US Secretary of Sate Marco Rubio described it as “the most unprecedented, extraordinary, migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.
Bukele said he would house the prisoners in his “mega-prison”, but what could that mean for prisoners? Below, we look inside the notorious facility that was created for the “war on gangs” – and explore why Trump believes the deal would be a “great deterrent”.
CECOT
The maximum-security prison only opened in January 2023 but it is one of the largest in Latin America – housing up to 40,000 inmates including the country’s most dangerous skinhead gangsters.
It has become a symbol of Bukele’s aggressive crackdown on crime and been described as violent and overcrowded with some prisoners having little to no due process.
Videos highlighting the grim life of prisoners have been released showing inmates in boxer shorts being marched into prison yards and sitting on top of one another. They also share windowless cells with not enough metal bunks. According to a BBC reporter who visited, inmates spent 24 hours a day in their cells aside from half an hour of group exercise in a corridor.
But Bukele, who wants to fight dangerous street gangs in the Central American country, is proud of the facility. He believes they are taking the “worst of the worst” away from the streets where they have a powerful influence and strike fear in communities. His state of emergency in March 2022 led to 81,000 people being arrested in a bid to harm the influence of gangs.
He once tweeted: “El Salvador has managed to go from being the world’s most dangerous country, to the safest country in the Americas. How did we do it? By putting criminals in jail. Is there space? There is now.”
CECOT is based in a town called Tecoluca and cells are said to hold up to 70 prisoners each. Unlike in the UK or America, there are no visits, workshops or education offered. And despite not even being allowed outside, the only gyms in the sprawling eight pavilions are used by the armed guards who also get break rooms and dining rooms.
According to human rights organisation Cristosal, at least 261 people died last summer in the country’s prisons as part of a gang crackdown.
The country’s main gangs are MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) and Barrio 18 (18th Street gang) and imprisoned members, who have tattoos showing their loyalties, have to deliberately sleep beside people they would consider enemies on the outside.
Prisoners
The hellish conditions inside prisons in El Salvador, where American criminals may now be sent, were laid bare in a disturbing report in 2023. Cristosal found inmates had been tortured and strangled before being left to die. It also found between March 27, 2022, and March 27, 2023, there were 153 prisoner deaths in state custody – 29 being violent and 46 being “probably violent deaths” or under “suspicions of criminality”.
The human rights organisation spoke to hundreds of people who served time in the infamous facilities where Trump could soon send inmates to.
One man, with a fictitious name of Manuel, was accused of being a gang member and spent months inside an El Salvador prison.
Speaking about a 21-year-old who died in his cell, he told El Pais: “He was desperate and screaming for medicine or complaining of hunger and pain.” Manuel then claimed a police officer beat him with kicks and smacks of his baton and rifle. He added: “One day they beat him to death and dragged him out like an animal.”
Disturbingly, he also said torture methods were used, like cells being hosed with water before an electric current shocked those who were inside.
And speaking about being locked up with members of MS-13 and Mara Barrio 18, he added: “I didn’t talk to them because I hated them. I felt like I was there because of them.” Manuel went on to say: “The biggest enemy that one has in there is depression. You feel an immense emptiness and you just want to die.”
Another prisoner spoke to Cristosal about one guard who would threaten inmates by saying: “You’ll leave here alive only if you’re lucky.” The shocking report said: “While [inmates] kneeled, [guards] gave them electric shocks, and they drew blood from one. When they entered the area where the guards stayed, they were beaten again.”
The report also highlighted how “in some cases” inmates were only allowed one cup of water per day.
Another former inmate spoke about a guard throwing food on the floor which was “covered with mud and filth” and threatened to beat them if they grabbed it with their hands. Instead, they had five seconds to eat it with their mouths. The guard reportedly said afterwards: “The dogs were hungry.”
These concerns by human rights groups are of no interest to Bukele however, who calls the organisations “gang defenders”.