Latest news with #CentrefortheConfinementofTerrorism
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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. target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "El Salvador Leader Fights Crime and Virus, amid Criticism." AP News, 28 Apr. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. El Salvador's Prisons Are No Place for US Deportees | Human Rights Watch. 13 Mar. 2025, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "ICE Admits to an 'administrative Error' after Maryland Man Sent to El Salvador Prison." ABC News, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US senator says 'traumatised' man deported to El Salvador moved to new prison
A Maryland man who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been moved to a new prison, US Senator Chris Van Hollen has said. The Democratic senator was speaking after returning from El Salvador where he met Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to the notorious mega-jail Cecot (Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism) last month. Mr Ábrego García was "traumatised" and fearful of other prisoners while inside the facility, Van Hollen said, adding that he was moved to another facility in the country over a week ago. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to "facilitate" his return, however Trump administration officials have continued to push back against the order. The White House accuses him of being member of the transnational Salvadorian gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, and has said he would not return to the US. Mr Ábrego García has never been convicted of a crime. His family and attorneys have fiercely denied he is a member of MS-13. Chris Van Hollen said he was initially blocked from meeting Mr Ábrego García by Salvadoran authorities. Later, he said government officials helped facilitate a meeting and Mr Ábrego García was brought to the senator's hotel. "His conversation with me was the first communication that he had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted," Van Hollen said. "He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes." Van Hollen added that conditions in the new prison, in Salvadoran city of Santa Ana, were better. "He still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world," Van Hollen said. Mr Ábrego García's case is part of a simmering showdown between the Trump administration and the US courts system on the issue of immigration. A separate feud has been brewing after a judge said he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for its "wilful disregard" of his order barring deportation flights. Multiple judges - including a unanimous US Supreme Court ruling - said the government should facilitate Mr Ábrego García's return to the US. But the White House has insisted the Maryland man would "never" live in the US again. "If he [Mr Ábrego García] ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House Mr Ábrego García was "not a very innocent guy". What next in legal fight over El Salvador deportations? Who is the man in middle of Maryland deportation case? Sen Van Hollen said the Trump administration wants to "flat out lie about what this case is about". "If you want to make claims about Ábrego García, you should present them in the courts, not on social media," he said. Mr Ábrego García was arrested by immigration authorities on 12 March in Baltimore, before being deported from Texas to El Salvador on 15 March. The Trump administration acknowledged in court he was wrongly deported due to an "administrative error". What we know about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and MS-13 allegations
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US senator says 'traumatised' man deported to El Salvador moved to new prison
A Maryland man who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador has been moved to a new prison, US Senator Chris Van Hollen has said. The Democratic senator was speaking after returning from El Salvador where he met Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to the notorious mega-jail Cecot (Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism) last month. Mr Ábrego García was "traumatised" and fearful of other prisoners while inside the facility, Van Hollen said, adding that he was moved to another facility in the country over a week ago. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to "facilitate" his return, however Trump administration officials have continued to push back against the order. The White House accuses him of being member of the transnational Salvadorian gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, and has said he would not return to the US. Mr Ábrego García has never been convicted of a crime. His family and attorneys have fiercely denied he is a member of MS-13. Chris Van Hollen said he was initially blocked from meeting Mr Ábrego García by Salvadoran authorities. Later, he said government officials helped facilitate a meeting and Mr Ábrego García was brought to the senator's hotel. "His conversation with me was the first communication that he had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted," Van Hollen said. "He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes." Van Hollen added that conditions in the new prison, in Salvadoran city of Santa Ana, were better. "He still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody in the outside world," Van Hollen said. Mr Ábrego García's case is part of a simmering showdown between the Trump administration and the US courts system on the issue of immigration. A separate feud has been brewing after a judge said he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for its "wilful disregard" of his order barring deportation flights. Multiple judges - including a unanimous US Supreme Court ruling - said the government should facilitate Mr Ábrego García's return to the US. But the White House has insisted the Maryland man would "never" live in the US again. "If he [Mr Ábrego García] ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House Mr Ábrego García was "not a very innocent guy". What next in legal fight over El Salvador deportations? Who is the man in middle of Maryland deportation case? Sen Van Hollen said the Trump administration wants to "flat out lie about what this case is about". "If you want to make claims about Ábrego García, you should present them in the courts, not on social media," he said. Mr Ábrego García was arrested by immigration authorities on 12 March in Baltimore, before being deported from Texas to El Salvador on 15 March. The Trump administration acknowledged in court he was wrongly deported due to an "administrative error". What we know about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and MS-13 allegations
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Real photo shows tied-up, stripped men in Salvadoran prison — just not the one receiving US deportees in 2025
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, 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. Amidst these deportations, a photograph spread online, claiming to show gang members stripped of most clothing and tied together in an El Salvador prison. 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. target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "El Salvador Leader Fights Crime and Virus, amid Criticism." AP News, 28 Apr. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. El Salvador's Prisons Are No Place for US Deportees | Human Rights Watch. 13 Mar. 2025, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "ICE Admits to an 'administrative Error' after Maryland Man Sent to El Salvador Prison." ABC News, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025. "Members of the 'Mara 18' and 'MS-13' Gangs Are Seen in Custody Of..." Getty Images, 5 Sept. 2020, target="blank"> Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.
Al Jazeera
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Trump deports 238 ‘gang members' to El Salvador: What's the controversy?
President Donald Trump's administration deported alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua from the United States to El Salvador on Sunday, despite a court order prohibiting their expulsion from the country. The move is the latest in a series of steps by the Trump administration to expel foreign nationals — some accused of being in the US without documentation, others targeted over campus protests. Here is what happened, and whether it violated the court order. What happened? El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on Sunday that his country had received 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and an additional 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 from the US. Bukele had agreed to jail members of these groups on behalf of the US in a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month. He added that these deportees were in the custody of the Central American country's Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) for a one-year period that could be extended. During Trump's inauguration speech, he said he would invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. On Saturday, Trump signed a proclamation invoking that 227-year-old law. The proclamation claims that Tren de Aragua is 'perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion' against US territory. It adds that all Venezuelan citizens aged 14 or older 'who are members of' the gang and are not naturalised or lawful permanent US citizens are liable to be restrained and removed as 'Alien Enemies'. After Trump's order, federal judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the District Court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order to block Trump's ability to exercise wartime powers to carry out deportations. This was during a hearing on Saturday sought by the American Civil Liberties Union. But hours later, Bukele confirmed that the Trump administration had nevertheless gone ahead with the deportations. He shared a snippet of a news article about the judge's ruling, captioning it: 'Oopsie … Too late', with a crying-with-laughter emoji. What is the Alien Enemies Act and how does it work? The Alien Enemies Act allows the US president to detain or deport non-citizens during wartime conditions. In 1798, the US was preparing for what it believed was a war with France. The law was introduced to prevent immigrants from sympathising with the French. The law allows the president to carry out these deportations without a hearing and based only on citizenship. The Act has been invoked only three times before, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. Why is this controversial? While Trump and his allies have argued that the US is at threat of 'invasion' of undocumented immigrants, critics say the president is wrongly invoking the wartime law. An explainer published by the Brennan Center for Justice last year says invoking the Act 'in peacetime to bypass conventional immigration law would be a staggering abuse'. 'The courts should strike down any attempted peacetime use of the Alien Enemies Act,' it adds. The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right to a grand jury. 'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury,' it states, adding that wartime is one of the few exceptions to this. The fact that the Trump administration possibly defied a judge's order further exacerbates this controversy. The White House's action was in 'open defiance' of Judge Boasberg's order, Patrick Eddington, a homeland security and civil liberties legal expert at the Washington, DC-based Cato Institute, told the Reuters news agency. 'This is beyond the pale and certainly unprecedented,' Eddington said. But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has pushed back against the criticism. 'A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil,' Leavitt said in a statement posted on her X account on Sunday. She added that 'federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President's conduct of foreign affairs'. Bruce Fein, an American lawyer specialising in constitutional and international law, disagreed. 'The President is not a king. January 20, 2025, was not a coronation. The President is not Napoleon … Federal courts have jurisdiction over the President,' Fein told Al Jazeera. 'The probability that Trump flouted Judge James Boasberg's order is high, but we need to await more due process,' he added. Leavitt argued that by the time the court order was issued, the deportees had been removed from the US. The exact timings of the deportation flight are unclear. Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University's Law Center, posted on Bluesky that 'a federal court's jurisdiction does *not* stop at the water's edge.' In other words, according to Vladeck, those deportees ought to be brought back to the US even if they had left the US airspace by the time the judge passed his order. 'The court's jurisdiction turns on the presence of the defendant in the United States, not the plaintiffs,' Fein explained, adding that Trump, the defendant in this case, is in the US. 'He could be ordered to return deportees who had been illegally deported to the United States.' Why were these migrants sent to El Salvador? Bukele is detaining the deportees under a deal where the US would compensate El Salvador to hold them, Bukele wrote in an X post. The Trump administration will pay approximately $6m to El Salvador for detaining about 300 alleged Tren de Aragua members from Venezuela for a year. The Salvadorian president also shared a video on his account showing the handcuffed deportees being dragged and having their heads and faces shaved by masked El Salvador police officers. 'The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.' Venezuela has typically not accepted deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent Venezuelan deportees to third countries in Central America 'because the US does not have decent relations with Venezuela', Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer, told Al Jazeera earlier. Over the past month, Venezuela has accepted some 350 deportees, including about 180 detained at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base in Cuba, for 16 days. As of 2022, there were 275,000 unauthorised Venezuelan immigrants in the US, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center. What is the CECOT? The Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, which means the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism, is a 40,000-capacity maximum-security prison in El Salvador. That is where the alleged gang members deported by the US are now being held. The mega-prison prohibits visitation, education and recreation. Inmates are not allowed to go outdoors. CECOT opened in January 2023, within a year of Bukele ordering the construction. It is located in Tecoluca, 72km (45 miles) east of the Salvadorian capital, San Salvador. What is the Tren de Aragua? Tren de Aragua, which is Spanish for 'the train of Aragua', is designated to be a 'foreign terrorist organization' (FTO) by the US. While information about the group is sparse, media reports have previously suggested that the group was formed in 2014 by Hector 'El Nino' Guerrero and two other men who were imprisoned in Tocoron prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. The gang largely controlled the prison, ordering robberies, murders and kidnappings from behind bars. The gang is alleged to be behind the 2024 murder of former Venezuelan army officer Ronald Ojeda, who conspired against President Nicolas Maduro. In January, Maduro was sworn in for his third six-year term after a contentious election. A proclamation published by the White House alleges that Tren de Aragua 'operates in conjunction with Cartel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela'. What's next? On Sunday, Trump asked the DC Circuit Court for a stay of Boasberg's order. 'The stay will assuredly be denied within days,' Fein predicted.
