Inside Trump’s $6mn deportee deal with El Salvador mega-prison

What’s the context?

The US has sent hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT prison in a controversial deal blasted by lawyers and rights groups.

• Hundreds of Venezuelans deported to Central American nation
• US pays El Salvador to detain expelled migrants
• Deportation deal faces challenges in US courts

TECOLUCA, El Salvador – Behind the high concrete walls of El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, more than 250 Venezuelans deported in March from the United States remain locked up as President Donald Trump ramps up his mass deportations.

As part of a deal reached between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Trump, the United States is paying the Central American country $6 million to hold the Venezuelan deportees and others it claims are gang members.

Bukele is scheduled to visit the White House on Monday to discuss further use of the giant Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) – the largest detention facility in the Americas that can hold up to 40,000 prisoners – for deportees from the United States.

But the deportation deal is fraught with complications. As attorneys and relatives of many deportees deny they have gang ties, battles are being fought over their right to due process and concerns are growing over the conditions inside CECOT.

The United States deported more than 250 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, along with 23 suspected MS-13 gang members and leaders, to El Salvador on March 16 and March 31.

The U.S. designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organisation” in January.

For 137 of the accused gang deportees, the U.S. government cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a rarely used wartime law, saying the men belonged to Tren de Aragua but provided few details about their cases.

A U.S. official said in a court filing that many of those 137 have no U.S. convictions but nevertheless posed serious threats.

Legal blows to deportations

The use of El Salvador to dump deportees is being fought out in U.S. courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the administration to “facilitate” the return of Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he was sent to CECOT despite an immigration court order against him being placed there due to the risk of persecution.

Judges in Texas and New York on April 9 dealt twin blows to Trump’s effort to revive deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Enemies Act after the Supreme Court ruled the administration could expel people under the rule.

This marked victories for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to prevent further deportations of alleged gang members under the 18th century law.

Family members, many of whom say those deported have no gang affiliation, are fearful about their fate.

The Venezuelan prisoners, who have not committed any crimes in El Salvador and have not been tried in local courts, have not been seen publicly since last month.

No family visits are allowed at the mega-prison, which human rights groups say is overcrowded with harsh conditions.     

International law

Defense attorneys say details have not been released about the prisoners’ confinement and they have not been able to communicate with them, despite international law giving them that right.

“From no point of view, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself, should any person be treated in this manner, much less should they be in a detention centrer for immigration issues,” said Salvadoran lawyer Jaime Ortega, head of a law firm handling the Venezuelans’ case.

A habeas corpus lawsuit that questions the legality of the detentions has been presented to El Salvador’s Supreme Court in defense of 30 imprisoned Venezuelan citizens, and by extension to the rest of the detainees, Ortega said.

During an April 4 visit to the sprawling CECOT complex, Context witnessed unidentified inmates sitting in cells on metal bunks, dressed in white clothes with their heads shaved.

The prisoners, who were not the alleged Venezuelan gang deportees, intently observed the procession of journalists who accompanied a guided tour by Costa Rican officials visiting El Salvador to evaluate the prison system.

Some inmates could be seen undergoing medical checkups, doing physical exercise or listening to religious talks about forgiveness and repentance, all under close watch by masked guards and riot gear-clad police officers.

No authorisation was provided to the media to speak to inmates or prison staff.

‘Great friend’

El Salvador has become a key partner of the Trump administration in its deportation juggernaut.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Bukele as “not only the strongest security leader in our region, he’s also a great friend of the U.S.” 

Rubio hailed the $6 million deal for El Salvador to house migrants, saying it will hold accused gang members in “very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.” 

Opened in 2023 and located in an isolated rural area about an hour’s drive from the capital San Salvador, the mega-prison also holds about 18,000 Salvadorans who had been detained in other prisons since March 2022 under a state of emergency declared by Bukele to combat gang violence.

Bukele’s iron-fisted war against violent gangs has led to plummeting murder rates and gained him popularity among many in El Salvador.

But local and international human rights organisations have denounced the imprisonment of innocent Salvadorans with no gang ties for lacking due process or fair trials.

“People being deported to El Salvador to be confined in the CECOT are being sent to a prison system of terror where they are held in absolute isolation, where they are not allowed to exercise their right to defense,” said David Morales, a lawyer at Cristosal, a group defending rights in Central America.

CECOT has “conditions of torture under which hundreds of Salvadorans have died under the regime,” he said.

The press office of Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro said he would not comment on the situation of Venezuelans and others deported from the United States when asked ahead of the visit by the Costa Rican officials. 

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Editing by Ayla Jean Yackley)