Fact Check: Photo of Salvadoran prison doesn't show detention center where Trump admin deported alleged gang members
Claim:
A photograph authentically shows incarcerated men stripped of most clothing and tied together in CECOT, a Salvadoran prison.
Rating:
Context:
The photograph does show a prison in El Salvador — but not CECOT, the detention center where U.S. President Donald Trump's administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia in 2025. The photo, taken in April 2020, shows the Izalco prison. Prison conditions in both places in El Salvador are notoriously poor according to human rights groups.
In April 2025, a photograph spread online claiming to show gang members stripped of most clothing and tied together in an El Salvador prison. The photograph emerged after U.S. President Donald Trump deported alleged gang members from Venezuela and El Salvador to the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Trump also contemplated deporting convicted U.S. citizens to El Salvador.
The photo has been on Reddit since 2024 with the caption: "A prison in El Salvador. A country once known for having the world's highest murder rate now has the world's highest incarceration rate."
(Reddit)
Snopes readers sent us the same image, asking if it showed CECOT, where Trump had deported undocumented migrants and considered deporting U.S. citizens. Many online also claimed the image showed the aforementioned CECOT. One post shared the same images of the men who had been stripped and tied together from different angles, with the caption, "What is happening at CECOT?"
While the above image does show a group of men imprisoned and tied up in an El Salvador prison, it does not show CECOT. The above image was taken in 2020 and shows a different location, the Izalco prison, in El Salvador. As such, we rate this claim as miscaptioned.
Using Google's reverse-image search, we found the photograph was taken on April 25, 2020, and released by the El Salvador presidential press office. According to the caption from The Associated Press:
In this Saturday, April 25, 2020 photo released by the El Salvador presidential press office, inmates are lined up during a security operation under the watch of police at Izalco prison in San Salvador, El Salvador. Last weekend there were 47 killings in El Salvador, a surge in violence that the government alleges was directed from gangs in prison. The government reacted by releasing photos of imprisoned gang members stripped virtually naked and stacked against each other as punishment, and President Nayib Bukele said he authorized the use of lethal force against gangs and ordered that their members be put in the same prison cells, creating the potential for more bloodshed.
The images showed some of the men wearing face masks while jammed together, stripped and tied up.
This appears to be a regular practice in that particular prison. We found photographs of the same situation and location, taken in September 2020, on Getty Images. Per the captions:
Members of the "Mara 18" and "MS-13" gangs are seen in custody of guards at a maximum security prison in Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador on September 4, 2020, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. The salvadoran government showed Friday the "strict" reclusion conditions of gang members in the country's prisons, amid a controversy generated by a journalistic report that denounced alleged benefits to imprisoned gang members to reduce homicides.
According to Human Rights Watch, El Salvador's prisons have 108,000 detainees living in conditions meant for only 70,000. The human rights group conducted interviews with formerly incarcerated people and found examples of brutal torture, beatings, and inhumane conditions in the prison system. The group reported that El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele's offer to house U.S. deported immigrants, and even U.S. citizens, would make the U.S. complicit in human rights violations:
Sending people into such conditions would not only make the U.S. government complicit in violations of human rights, it would also repeat past mistakes. MS13 and Barrio 18, the brutal gangs that until recently terrorized neighborhoods across El Salvador, were born in part from deportations by the U.S. and from El Salvador's harsh law enforcement practices. Deportations from the U.S. in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, allowed these gangs to expand.
In a March 20, 2025, statement, the Human Rights Watch director for the Americas division also noted the distinction between CECOT and Izalco:
While CECOT is likely to have more modern technology and infrastructure than other prisons in El Salvador, I understand the mistreatment of detainees there to be in large part similar to what Human Rights Watch has documented in other prisons in El Salvador, including Izalco, La Esperanza (Mariona) and Santa Ana prisons. This includes cases of torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food.
In late March 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admitted to an "administrative error" in deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant with protected legal status, to CECOT. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration should facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. As of this writing, he was still in prison.
"Can Trump Legally Deport US Citizens to El Salvador Prisons?" Al Jazeera, Apr. 17, 2025. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/16/can-trump-legally-deport-us-citizens-to-el-salvador-prisons." target="blank">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/16/can-trump-legally-deport-us-citizens-to-el-salvador-prisons.">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/16/can-trump-legally-deport-us-citizens-to-el-salvador-prisons. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
"El Salvador Leader Fights Crime and Virus, amid Criticism." AP News, 28 Apr. 2020, https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-united-nations-gangs-ap-top-news-san-salvador-f1118ede744fe114e72d3ea2abb6c950." target="blank">https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-united-nations-gangs-ap-top-news-san-salvador-f1118ede744fe114e72d3ea2abb6c950.">https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-united-nations-gangs-ap-top-news-san-salvador-f1118ede744fe114e72d3ea2abb6c950. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
El Salvador's Prisons Are No Place for US Deportees | Human Rights Watch. 13 Mar. 2025, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-no-place-us-deportees." target="blank">https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-no-place-us-deportees.">https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-no-place-us-deportees. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
"ICE Admits to an 'administrative Error' after Maryland Man Sent to El Salvador Prison." ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ice-admits-administrative-error-after-maryland-man-el/story?id=120359991." target="blank">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ice-admits-administrative-error-after-maryland-man-el/story?id=120359991.">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ice-admits-administrative-error-after-maryland-man-el/story?id=120359991. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
"Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228357204." target="blank">https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228357204.">https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228357204. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
"Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228356510." target="blank">https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228356510.">https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-mara-18-and-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-news-photo/1228356510. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
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