Migrants deported from the US, and even “dangerous” American citizens convicted of heinous crimes could be headed to a notorious hellhole prison in El Salvador, where inmates live in over-crowded cells and rival gang members fight to the death over food and water.
The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) has been hailed as the Central American nation’s solution to rampant gang violence, but human rights groups says the 15,000 inmates face inhumane treatment — and up to a third are believed to be innocent.
After a meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador Monday, Rubio announced that the mega prison could begin accepting inmates from the US.
“We can send them and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said of migrants set to be deported from the US.
He added: “And, he’s 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.”
The CECOT prison lies 47 miles southeast of the capital city, with gangbangers from MS-13 and rival Barrio 18 held inside its walls, according to the government
The prison boasts wide dining halls, break rooms, a gym, and a plethora of board games, but all those amenities are reserved for the nearly 2,000 guards patrolling the facility.
The inmates are instead crammed into their cells for 23-and-a-half hours a day, with each cell holding 65 to 70 prisoners. Rival gang members are often kept in the same cells, the AFP reports.
The prisoners are only allowed out of the cells to exercise for 30 minutes every day inside the hallways, or to attend court hearings via video from a prison room.
The inmates shower from a large basin inside their cells, and they collect water from a large plastic barrel to drink from. A steel walkway above the cells and surveillance cameras ensure the prisoners are watched 24/7.
Salvadoran President Bukele’s government prohibits meat at CECOT, so the prisoners are fed only beans and pasta. The Due Process of Law Foundation, which campaigns for human rights in Latin America, has said the amount of food served at the prison is completely inadequate.
Despite Bukele’s claims that the jail is tightly managed, local and international human rights groups also say violence is all too common at the prison, whether at the hands of guards or the inmates themselves.
The Cristosal human rights group found that at least 174 inmates had been tortured and killed from January to June of last year.
Miguel Sarre, a former member of the United Nations’ Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, previously slammed CECOT as nothing more than a “concrete and steel pit” that allows El Salvador “to dispose of people without formally applying the death penalty.”
The Due Process of Law Foundation fears that the treatment inside the prison will leave a mental toll on the inmates and dash any hopes of rehabilitating them, despite the fact that many of the prisoners are serving life sentences and will likely never see the outside world again.
However, prison director Belarmino Garcia described the inmates as “psychopaths who will be difficult to rehabilitate,” during a tour of the jail to reporters last week.
“That’s why they are here, in a maximum security prison that they will never leave,” he said.
The Socorro Juridico Humanitario rights group claimed that nearly a third of those detained at CECOT are innocent.
About 8,000 innocent people were freed last year after they were caught in a sweep that saw more than 80,0000 arrested after Bukele declared a state of emergency.
The mega prison is capable of holding 40,000 people, with Bukele offering to fill some of the vacancies with criminal migrants and convicted US citizens, for a fee.
It remains to be seen if such an extraordinary step can be taken given that under current law; it is prohibited for the US to deport citizens to another country.
“It’s preposterous,” Emerson College professor Mneesha Gellman, an international politics scholar, told The Post. “It’s a distraction that doesn’t address the real issues behind crime and immigration… and it’s certainly not a legal act.
Experts have also suggested El Salvador and the US would be violating a number of international laws by holding citizens from other countries at CECOT.
“It’s an unprecedented move that’s not comparable to anything the US has tried before when moving detained people,” Gellman said.
“It goes beyond detaining people at Guantanamo Bay… or in the Japanese internment camps in World War II,” she added. “It’s likely violating a number of international laws.”
Manuel Flores, general secretary of El Salvador’s opposition party, slammed the proposal, saying El Salvador would not be a dumping ground for criminals in the Western Hemisphere.
“What are we? Backyards, front yards, or garbage dumps?” he said at a press conference
With Post wires
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