Trump touts CECOT, but cannot legally deport US citizens there
Updated 20:50 15 Oct 2026 GMT+1Published 14:52 5 Feb 2025 GMT
Inmates have said they were told 'the only way you leave here is dead' as they went in
Donald Trump has claimed that crime rates in the US are falling because they are sending 'killers, drug dealers and thugs' to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
He made the claim on his Truth Social account recently as he posted a video of prisoners being forced into the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), declaring: "This is why murder and other crimes in America are at record lows."
The prison opened in 2023 under El Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele’s administration and has been used to incarcerate thousands of people, while the country claims that they could take up to 40,000 inmates.
In El Salvador the prison has been used to keep those suspected of gang activity under lock and key, and Trump has deported people from the US to CECOT in the past.
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Trump's post suggests he wants to send more people to the prison, where conditions are described as 'inhumane'.
The conditions in CECOT have been described as 'inhumane' (Alex Peña/Getty Images)
Inside the prison is a security team who monitor inmates 24/7, and with 19 towers surrounding the compound, it's protected by two concrete walls and two electrified fences.
Although the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture Miguel Sarre once described it as a 'concrete and steel pit', it seems the Trump administration are in favour of CECOT.
Prisoners have to follow a strict set of rules as they have to stay within their cells for 23.5 hours a day and they keep the lights on at all times so they don't know how much time has passed.
Many prisoners are kept in a cell together where the temperature can rise to 35C, and they sleep on mattresses of bare metal.
Prisoners also aren't given utensils to eat with, so they have to eat with their bare hands.
El Salvador says they have 20,000 prisoners in CECOT and they have space for 40,000 (Alex Peña/Getty Images)
It's not the first time the question of US citizens being sent to CECOT has been raised, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously announced 'the most unprecedented, extraordinary, migratory agreement anywhere in the world'.
Bukele had said he was happy to take in people deported from the US, regardless of their nationality, which would include US citizens.
"We can send them and he will put them in his jails," Rubio explained at the time.
"He [Bukele] has also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they're US citizens or legal residents."
However, it is still the case now as it was then that Trump cannot legally deport US citizens and incarcerate them in another country, though the question remains what a court could do to stop him if he just did it anyway, as they told him he couldn't deport Venezuelans to CECOT and it still happened.
Featured Image Credit: Alex Peña/Getty Images
Topics: Crime, World News, US News, Politics