(CNN) — The United States proposed sending up to 500 Venezuelan migrants with alleged ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador as the two governments sought to reach an agreement on the use of the Central American nation’s notorious mega-prison, according to emails seen by CNN.
The details of the arrangement, which have not been previously reported, reveal the Trump administration’s deal-making with El Salvador to take the unprecedented step of sending migrants to the country to be detained in CECOT, officially known as the Terrorism Confinement Center.
El Salvador eventually agreed to accept up to 300 people in mid-March, according to an internal document. A US official described 500 as a “notional” figure, adding that the arrangement between the two countries is a “cooperation agreement but in a friendly non-binding fashion,” and still stands.
President Donald Trump has lavished praise on El Salvador’s Trump-friendly President Nayib Bukele, telling reporters earlier this month “he’s doing a fantastic job.” “He’s been amazing,” Trump said. “They have some very bad people in that prison,” he added referring to CECOT.
Trump officials have long touted El Salvador as a key ally to the administration’s immigration agenda — but deportation flights carrying 238 Venezuelan migrants to the country last month sparked a fraught legal battle and fierce criticism from Democrats and immigrant advocates.
Prior to those flights, though, the United States had been setting up a costly arrangement with El Salvador to detain migrants with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the administration labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
The US has approved $15 million in foreign affairs funding to be sent to El Salvador. But, as of late April, just under $5 million has been sent in the form of a grant to El Salvador’s government, according to two sources familiar. According to the US official, the Trump administration is providing compensation per individual imprisoned in the country which is why another tranche of money hasn’t been sent yet.
The proposed arrangement included the US providing transportation and related costs and paying a one-time maintenance fee of $10 million, about $20,000 per person sent to the facility, according to emails sent between Bukele’s brother Ibrajim and Michael Needham, the counselor and chief of staff to Secretary of State Marco Rubio days before the deportation flights departed.
“Upon all nine being returned, (El Salvador) will provide (US government) a 50% discount for Year 2, if necessary, of the original TdAs,” one email reads, referring to a request by the El Salvadoran government of certain MS-13 members.
The US official told CNN that deportations of MS-13 gang members, particularly of its leaders, was a priority for Bukele, and the Trump administration agreed.
Prior to the correspondence between Bukele’s brother and Needham, Rubio and the Salvadoran president discussed detaining US deportees during Rubio’s visit in February.
‘Reasonable’ terms
Ibrajim Bukele described the terms as seeming “reasonable” and requested requirements for the inmates who would be deported there. Needham told him that the “baseline requirements do not differ from El Salvador’s for the treatment of prisoners, as both are in accordance with international legal norms.”
While he asked for the agreement to be limited to 500 members of Tren de Aragua, Needham added the US “would like to keep the door open for a separate discussion on how the USG can help El Salvador with a new facility in the future.”
A day before the March 15 flights, El Salvador’s government agreed to accept up to 300 alleged Tren de Aragua members for up to one year, as well as two alleged MS-13 members, according to the internal document seen by CNN.
Rubio and President Bukele also spoke again prior to the flights.
“The United States has provided funding for El Salvador’s law enforcement and anticrime needs in connection with the Government of El Salvador’s offer to receive Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members removed from the United States,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN.
“The United States is fully engaging with our regional partners, including El Salvador, to put an end to the exploitation and deaths that stem from illegal immigration, which can also involve human trafficking and alien smuggling,” they said.
“As countries continue to work with us in securing our borders and addressing illegal immigration, we will provide assistance as necessary in support of these collaborative efforts,” the spokesperson said. “Our goal is to ensure that our partners are well-equipped to handle the challenges they face, ultimately contributing to a more stable and secure region.”
During a meeting between Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office, Trump urged the Salvadoran president to build more mega-prisons, like CECOT, and signaled that deportees could also include US citizens who are violence criminals.
A formal notice of the $4.76 million grant to El Salvador, dated March 22, notes the purpose of the grant “to provide funds to be used by Salvadoran law enforcement and corrections agencies for its law enforcement needs, which include costs of detaining the 238 TdA members recently deported to El Salvador,” according to the internal document seen by CNN.
Migrants sent to CECOT are considered to be in Salvadoran custody, according to US officials, and therefore no longer in the control of the US despite payments from the United States.
CNN previously reported that the Trump administration was preparing to send more immigrants to CECOT on the heels of a Supreme Court decision allowing the use of the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, which effectively wipes away due process and allows for the swift removal of migrants.
“It’s one of the reasons I went to El Salvador last week was a visit with the president. Asked him to continue to take terrorists from the United States of America that no longer belong here,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said following a trip to El Salvador.
But across the country, cases have cropped up contesting the removal of migrants under the wartime authority for fear that they may be sent to El Salvador and never returned. Since the flights in March, multiple attorneys have shared stories of clients who were deported to El Salvador with no ties to Tren de Aragua.
A federal judge in New York blasted the Trump administration last week for its use of the notorious prison in El Salvador for ICE detainees.
The comments came during a hearing in a case with a pending habeas petition filed by the ACLU on behalf of a class of Venezuelan immigrants facing removal under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
“These people are being thrown out of the country because of tattoos,” Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in court last Tuesday. “There is nothing in this statute or proclamation that authorizes the United States of America to hire a jail in a foreign country for people could be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment not allowable in the United States jails.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
