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Meetings between President<\/span> Donald Trump and foreign leaders can be tense<\/a> or bruising<\/a> affairs. But when Trump invited Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to the White House in April, it was all smiles as they joked about mass incarceration.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands \u2014 I like to say that we actually liberated millions,\u201d Bukele told reporters, referring to his so-called war on gangs in El Salvador.<\/p>\n Trump responded glowingly to Bukele\u2019s remarks. \u201cWho gave him that line?\u201d he said. \u201cYou think I could use that?\u201d \u2014 which drew scattered laughter from the room.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd in fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate,\u201d Bukele responded, in reference to the U.S. population. \u201cTo liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.\u201d<\/p>\n In Bukele, Trump has found a partner for his anti-immigrant agenda \u2014 and also a world leader similarly willing to not just normalize the deprivation of rights and suspension of the rule of law, but also celebrate it. As Trump flouts court orders and floats ideas<\/a> like reopening San Francisco\u2019s Alcatraz, the former prison island, for \u201cthe dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering,\u201d it\u2019s hard not to see Bukele\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n Bukele, in March 2022, declared a state of emergency in El Salvador, suspending most civil rights, including due process to imprison at least 85,000 people who the government accused of being gang members. While the crackdown greatly reduced homicide rates and the decadeslong grip of gangs on Salvadorans, thousands who had no association with gangs were dragged into custody. Many have been beaten, tortured, or even killed. Even so, Bukele\u2019s popularity soared. He has used this moment to further erode El Salvador\u2019s democratic institutions, expanding his grip on power. In 2024, Salvadorans reelected Bukele to an unconstitutional second term.<\/p>\n Central to Bukele\u2019s ability to justify his war on gangs to the public has been the opening of the Terrorism Confinement Center, a megaprison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, with an inmate capacity of 40,000. When the prison, known by its Spanish acronym CECOT, received its first 2,000 inmates in 2023, Bukele released polished promotional<\/a> videos<\/a> of guards rushing shirtless, shackled, tattooed men into the megaprison\u2019s massive cell blocks. Once imprisoned, people incarcerated there are denied any access to the outside world.<\/p>\n On March 15, the Trump administration used a wartime powers law, the Alien Enemies Act<\/a>, to deny due process rights for more than 250 Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants, flying them to El Salvador to be imprisoned in CECOT. Both Trump and Bukele have claimed the men are members of gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13.\u00a0<\/p>\n The move drew widespread outrage with criticism coalescing around the case of one of the disappeared men, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident and father of three, who the Trump administration had accidentally sent to El Salvador because of an apparent administrative error. The Supreme Court ordered Abrego Garcia\u2019s return to the U.S. in a rare 9-0 ruling<\/a>. Democratic lawmakers conducted trips to El Salvador to push for his release, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who was granted an unlikely one-hour meeting with Abrego Garcia last month.<\/p>\n Trump doubled down, promising that Abrego Garcia would never be allowed a return to the U.S., making the dubious claim<\/a> that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, despite having fled El Salvador as a teenager out of fear of violence from the gang. The Trump administration said it still hopes to imprison immigrants in CECOT and has even floated the idea of incarcerating U.S. citizens there<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bukele has framed his $6 million <\/a>deal with the White House to imprison immigrants in CECOT as a way to help a strong ally in the U.S. But he has also seized the moment for his own political gain, continuing to champion his anti-gang narrative within El Salvador.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hours after the transfer, Bukele once again promoted his megaprison with a similarly dramatized<\/a> video<\/a> documenting the men\u2019s arrival from the U.S. \u201cThis will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13,\u201d Bukele wrote alongside the video. \u201cAs always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot unlike Trump, he starts a fire to distract you from the fire he just started.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Like other megaprisons, such as the U.S. government\u2019s Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/a> detention center where 9\/11 suspects have been abused and tortured<\/a> for more than two decades, Bukele uses CECOT to project power over Salvadorans. <\/strong>Unlike at American black sites, however, <\/strong>Bukele eagerly shares images of prison guards dehumanizing men incarcerated there. But what the public can see \u2014 men covered head to toe in tattoos forced into tight rows with their heads bowed \u2014 are intended as a distraction from the more everyday cruelty of disappearing thousands of innocent civilians into El Salvador\u2019s shadowy prisons, said Salvadoran human rights activists and journalists who have documented and opposed Bukele\u2019s rise to authoritarian power.<\/p>\n Bukele has referred to the men incarcerated in CECOT as \u201cterrorists\u201d pulled from El Salvador\u2019s streets, even as many of those shown in government images of the prison were likely arrested prior to Bukele\u2019s presidency, rights activists said. They said that while Abrego Garcia\u2019s case and the cases of those transferred from the U.S. to CECOT deserves attention, they are just a small slice\u00a0of an unfathomable number of people deprived of due process and disappeared within El Salvador\u2019s prison system.<\/p>\n While CECOT has been the most visible prison in the country, the majority of those arrested in the past three years under the state of emergency have been imprisoned at other facilities, according to human rights groups. CECOT is one of 22 facilities within the country\u2019s vast network of prisons that have been expanding over the past decade. While the government has opened up CECOT to international media and American conservative lawmakers, Bukele has kept most of his prisons out of sight.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCECOT is what the Bukele regime wants you to see, because they will not show you the images of Mariona, they will not show you the images of Izalco, they will not show you the images of Apanteos,\u201d said Salvadoran journalist Nelson Rauda Zablah, listing the country\u2019s older prisons rife with documented cases of torture, abuse, and death.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re paying attention to his narrative, that\u2019s not a game you want to be playing, because, not unlike Trump, he starts a fire to distract you from the fire he just started,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2021, Bukele upended El Salvador\u2019s judicial system by replacing top Supreme Court judges and hundreds of lower court judges with loyalists and ousted the country\u2019s attorney general who had opposed his policies. To the public, Bukele framed the moves as anti-corruption measures, referring to the governmental system as \u201cLos mismos de siempre,\u201d or, \u201cThe same as always,\u201d reminiscent of Trump\u2019s \u201cDrain the swamp\u201d slogan of his first term.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March 2022, an apparent pact with the country\u2019s gang leaders collapsed, leading to a surge in gang-related homicides. Around that time, pro-democracy opposition groups began to show force with mass protests against Bukele. No longer with judicial constraints, Bukele responded by shepherding a new law through the country\u2019s legislature that declared a state of emergency. The law, known as the State of Exception, suspended many civil rights, including due process, legal representation, and freedom of assembly. He then mobilized police and military into largely low-income neighborhoods controlled by gangs.<\/p>\n Among those caught in the police and military forces\u2019 wide dragnet have been family members of alleged gang members, charged as accomplices, along with many others who have no gang ties and were wrongfully charged, according to human rights groups. Most arrests took place without a warrant. In jail, detainees take part in group hearings where hundreds are charged at once with no ability to speak with a lawyer beforehand.\u00a0<\/p>\n Police, often operating on quotas, arrested hundreds based on appearance, social class, or vague grounds, such as \u201csuspicious appearance,\u201d \u201cnervous appearance,\u201d or \u201canonymous reports,\u201d according to an investigation<\/a> by El Faro, the country\u2019s foremost investigative news outlet.<\/p>\n Much like the case of Abrego Garcia and the others illegally transferred from the U.S., the majority of those arrested during the State of Exception, have been without communication with attorneys or family members.<\/p>\n At least 378 in-custody deaths have been recorded since the start of the State of Exception, according to Salvadoran human rights group Cristosal, largely due to lack of medical care and the denial of food, water, or hygiene. At times, such deaths have been combined with physical signs of assault.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a fixation on Kilmar Abrego, but the Bukele model is built upon Kilmar Abregos \u2014 there are thousands of them, and we\u2019ve told their stories,\u201d said Rauda Zablah, the digital editor of El Faro, which has published accounts of torture<\/a> inside El Salvador\u2019s prisons.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among such stories is the case of 64-year-old businessman Francisco Huezo L\u00f3pez, who was imprisoned in the early days of the State of Exception in 2022. L\u00f3pez, who spent much of his life in the U.S., disappeared after police called him into a station for an interview, according to El Faro<\/a>. Police arrested L\u00f3pez because of a previous charge that accused him of being associated with a gang, for which he was acquitted in 2021. Two months later, his body \u2014 which had signs of trauma wounds to the cheekbone, arms, feet, and head \u2014 was returned to his family from Mariona prison. A forensic investigation listed the cause of death as pulmonary edema, a commonly cited cause in prison deaths where signs of abuse or torture were present.<\/p>\n During the first year of the State of Exception, Cristosal documented 159 deaths in prison in a 2023 report<\/a>. Among those, 28 were considered violent, due to signs of torture, beatings, asphyxiation by strangulation, and other injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n El Salvador\u2019s director of prisons Osiris Luna Meza spoke openly<\/a> about making people \u201csuffer\u201d in prisons, such as withholding meals and preventing people from getting sunlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cristosal recorded the death of a 23-year-old man whose body showed signs of beatings, such as broken feet and hands, the report said, as well as sores on his back in an elongated burn-like shape, a possible sign of torture. His body was delivered to family in a closed casket.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 24-year-old fisherman died in an ambulance while on the way from Mariona prison to a hospital. His body had a perforation through one of his shoulders and lacerations on his knees, though the official cause of death was \u201cpulmonary edema.\u201d His wife, who was five months pregnant at the time of his death, suffered a miscarriage while grieving.<\/p>\n Some individuals died of medical neglect, such as a 42-year-old woman who died of \u201cseptic shock due to immunosuppression caused by nasal carcinoma\u201d \u2014 her family said they were unaware that she had cancer. \u201cHer body was unrecognizable, she had lost approximately 40 pounds,\u201d the report said. She had been arrested due to an anonymous complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 24-year-old man who had no history of illnesses called his family from Mariona prison, seven months after he was detained. Except now, he complained of stomachaches. At a hospital, physicians said the man was malnourished, dehydrated, and deeply anemic. After family members petitioned on his behalf, he was allowed to return home but was diagnosed with terminal kidney failure. He died several days later at home. He had told a relative that the water at Mariona was hot and tasted like chlorine, and that detainees were only fed once a day \u2014 when guards would strike them on the back. \u201cSo I stopped going out to eat so they wouldn\u2019t hit me, because those blows hurt,\u201d the man recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2023 report also included accounts of collective torture, such as guards beating people who had recently arrived to prisons. Guards also reportedly used electric shocks as another form of torture. Some recalled being forced to watch as guards beat another individual to death.<\/p>\n A separate 2022 report by Humans Rights Watch<\/a> recorded a case of Marcelo G\u00f3mez, <\/strong>a taxi driver detained by police who assured him it was for a routine check and that he would be released in a few days. The 39-year-old G\u00f3mez ended up being jailed at Izalco for two weeks, during which he was placed in a barrel filled with cold water while guards interrogated him for hours about alleged gang ties. During some points, guards forced his head underwater.<\/p>\n Those who were incarcerated also spoke of extreme overcrowding, with many forced to take turns sleeping. Cells in Mariona and Izalco prisons are known to be small with covered windows, preventing airflow amid 90-degree temperatures, causing some to faint.<\/p>\n In an apparent effort to sell the ongoing State of Exception to the world, last year, the Salvadoran government opened up CECOT to international mainstream media outlets and social<\/a> media<\/a> influencers<\/a> (requests by Salvadoran journalists critical of Bukele have been rejected). Among its early visitors<\/a> was former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump\u2019s original pick for head of the Department of Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n The prison\u2019s director walks reporters and influencers through the same choreographed tours, showing CECOT\u2019s thick layers of security, its armory, a solitary confinement cell, the meager meal given to inmates, and the main cell block itself. The CECOT director often repeats the ominous line that once an inmate enters CECOT, they never leave. Visitors walk out of the prison with footage of cells packed with dozens of men, most with visible tattoos across their bodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n When CNN visited CECOT in November, the first major U.S. news organization allowed inside, reporter David Culver repeated government lines, referring to those incarcerated there as \u201cthe worst of the worst,\u201d or the country\u2019s \u201cmost dangerous criminals.\u201d The network\u2019s 6-minute segment<\/a> featured an interview with a former MS-13 member, Marvin V\u00e1squez, imprisoned at CECOT \u2014 the same inmate interviewed in most tours. The man lifted his shirt to reveal \u201cMS\u201d tattooed on his stomach and \u201cCC\u201d on his lower back for the \u201cCrazy Criminals\u201d clique V\u00e1squez said he founded in 2011. \u201cYou made the clique? You are a gang leader?\u201d Culver said, his eyes widening.<\/p>\n But the vast majority of those incarcerated in CECOT were not among those arrested under Bukele\u2019s recent crackdowns, said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. Gangs in El Salvador have largely done away with tattooing their members. Cristosal did an analysis of 1,200 people arrested in the State of Exception: 54 had tattoos, and only nine were related to gangs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an intentionality to making all the fixation on CECOT,\u201d Bullock said, referring to the tattooed men in CECOT. \u201cThe reason for that is to eliminate any shadow of doubt about who is being punished under this, creating the image of the enemy, the monsters, and that plays into the narrative of this is how strongmen deal with \u2018the worst of the worst,\u2019 when in fact those are people who were in prison probably even before Bukele was the president.\u201d<\/p>\n After Noticias Telemundo published its own report on CECOT in October 2023, Bukele retweeted the news segment and wrote<\/a>, \u201cIn El Salvador, unlike most Latin American countries, our prisons are clean and orderly; there is no abuse, no unhealthiness, no beatings, no murders.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow many people would it have taken for the international community to be concerned about their arbitrary detentions, disappearances, suffering of torture and killings in prisons?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Over the past month, Bullock has taken dozens of interviews with U.S. and international media outlets eager for a quick translation of CECOT, El Salvador, and Bukele.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bullock said he has been encouraged that Abrego Garcia\u2019s case has increased the spotlight on Bukele\u2019s authoritarian rule, but he noted that among human rights groups in El Salvador, including organizations founded by family members of people who remain incarcerated under the State of Exception, there is also a sense of frustration.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to help people see that [Abrego Garcia\u2019s] case is symptomatic of a scenario of mass and systematic human rights violations that\u2019s affecting tens of thousands of Salvadorans, and frustration because where was the help before? Where was the interest before?\u201d Bullock said. \u201cHow many people would it have taken for the international community to be concerned about their arbitrary detentions, disappearances, suffering of torture and killings in prisons?\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. media attention that El Salvador received throughout the State of Exception often focused on the security rather than the government\u2019s suspension of rights, Bullock said. The country\u2019s homicide rate fell by 70 percent<\/a> within the first year of the state of emergency, according to the Salvadoran government. A recent Gallup poll showed that Bukele boasts an approval rating of 83 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n The November CNN segment also included footage of military sweeps through a residential community. It highlighted interviews with residents who spoke in favor of Bukele\u2019s crackdowns. The segment failed to mention allegations of human rights violations by the government. For Salvadorans, CECOT is \u201ca symbol of newfound freedom, the \u2018new El Salvador,\u2019\u201d Culver said to end the segment. Even when Culver and CNN returned to CECOT in April<\/a> after the transfer of Abrego Garcia and other immigrants from the U.S., he again closed his segment by repeating the sentiment of \u201cnewfound freedom\u201d among Salvadorans.<\/p>\n Such narratives that suggest it was necessary for the government to strip people\u2019s rights in order to create a safer El Salvador, Bullock said, only justifies Bukele\u2019s broader governmental takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
\n Photo: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEl Salvador\u2019s Other Prisons<\/h2>\n
\u201cWorst of the Worst\u201d<\/h2>\n
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