The ‘Judicial Black Hole’ of El Salvador’s Prisons Is a Warning for Americans
On March 27, 2022, on the heels of a weekend marked by dozens of gang-related murders, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and his legislature plunged the country into a régimen de excepción — a state of exception — and declared war against the gangs. The state of exception suspended fundamental rights like freedom of assembly and association, the right to legal representation, and the right to see a judge within 72 hours of detention. The age of criminal responsibility was lowered to 12.
The crackdown that ensued saw tens of thousands of arrests of suspected gang members, who were tried en masse and disappeared into the nation’s prison system without even the illusion of due process. Allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights abuses abounded — and still do. Bukele is serving a second term despite a constitutional prohibition against it. The state of exception — originally a 30-day decree — has been extended 37 times. Over the course of three years, human rights in El Salvador have crumbled under its boot.
It’s here that President Donald Trump hopes to find a workable model for his own immigration crackdown, and the potential eradication of opposition to his nativist, right-wing agenda.
In March, the Trump administration sent three plane loads of primarily Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they were greeted by professional camera crews, blinding lights, and soldiers clad in military fatigues who manhandled them as they were frogmarched, shaved, and transported into the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) — a massive prison that functions as both a detention center, and a propaganda soundstage for the Bukele government. The planes landed in El Salvador despite a court order from a federal judge blocking the administration from deporting the detained migrants to a third nation without appropriate due process. The Trump administration paid El Salvador at least $6 million for the stunt, and the migrants have been thrust into a legal void that few manage to escape.
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“The Venezuelans have been sent to basically a judicial black hole,” says Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a leading human rights organization that has represented victims and the families of those internally displaced and disappeared in Central America for more than 20 years. “There’s already tens of thousands of El Salvadorans who are in it, who have not been able to exercise a defense, who have been subjected to systematic torture. Hundreds — probably more like thousands — have been killed.”
Ruth López, a renowned Salvadoran human rights lawyer who works as a chief legal officer at Cristosal, says the organization has been contacted by roughly 70 relatives and families of individuals caught in the deportation stunt, including “migrants without a prior criminal record, people who were detained on the street or upon entering the United States, others who had previously applied through the CPB One app or had existing formal asylum processes.”
López says it’s often Cristosal’s job to explain to families — who in these cases live primarily outside of El Salvador — the reality of what the detained person will face, and the challenges of fighting for their release. “Here in Salvador, between March 27, 2022, and December 31, 2024, there have been over 7,200 writs of habeas corpus submitted just to the Supreme Court. We can estimate that the rulings in favor of the people on those cases don’t surpass one percent,” she says. “These cases are also unique because these are not Salvadoran citizens, and additionally the government of El Salvador is being paid to hold them in an irregular situation — an unconstitutional situation.”
El Salvador’s state of exception — billed as a necessary measure to eliminate crime and corruption — has led to the imprisonment of thousands of innocents alongside dozens of community leaders, union leaders, and human rights defenders. The situation in El Salvador may seem like a far cry from the institutions of the United States, which for decades have been revered as the global gold standard for democratic governance. But the erosion of individual rights, and the Trump administration’s willingness to recreate — even partially — the Bukele model at home, should be a warning and a wake up call for Americans.
“America constantly talks about corruption elsewhere, this assumption that American institutions are incorruptible,” Bullock says. “In the end, human rights, corruption, autocracy — from an American exceptionalist mindset — is for the third world, and it makes it hard for people to see when it’s playing out in front of their faces.”
In the aftermath of the Salvadoran Civil War — a more than decade-long conflict made exponentially worse by the meddling of the United States — the country struggled to create a new egalitarian state, at the the same time that the American government began deporting undocumented migrants with criminal convictions from California back to Central America. The result was the rapid entrenchment and growth of criminal groups within an already unstable El Salvador, and the nation quickly became one of the world’s most dangerous countries. When Bukele entered office in 2019, the murder rate in El Salvador was 38 per 100,000 people, and gangs outright controlled parts of rural El Salvador. While it’s undeniable that the Bukele crackdown has reduced violent crime in the nation, the extent of its success is a matter of debate, as crime statistics are controlled by the Bukele government. Allegations have also persisted that Bukele negotiated a backdoor truce between some of the nation’s most powerful gangs. At the same time, over two percent of the nation’s population is now incarcerated — the highest percentage in the world — and reports of state-sponsored violence and human rights abuses have skyrocketed.
“Of course we were on board with neutralizing the gangs and the criminal elements, but that wasn’t the only thing the state of exception was for,” says Samuel Ramirez, founder of Movimiento de Víctimas del Régimen (Movement of Victims of the Regime), a protest and advocacy group that works with thousands of individuals and families affected by the state of exception. Bukele “used the gangs to create a spectacle, to command the attention of the world” he says.
While polling consistently shows that Bukele is quite popular in El Salvador, surveys also show a steady increase in fear of public criticism of the government — to degrees that sometimes match the president’s approval rating. “There’s a sector of the population that feels better, because it’s true that we perceive more security, we’re no longer afraid of the gangs. Now we’re afraid of the regime,” says Ramirez. “We see soldiers everywhere, police everywhere, patrol cars, and they’re arresting people.” Ramirez notes that on top of Bukele’s control of all three branches of government, and repression of the free press, families and activists he works with fear retaliation or arrest if they speak out against abuses or advocate for their imprisoned relatives. The murder rate — a statistic provided by the Bukele government — is down, but doesn’t include those who die in custody of the prison system or are killed by police.
El Salvador’s prisons have long been a hotbed of arbitrary detention and abuse, but the Bukele regime has operated under new levels of impunity. Officers are reportedly given daily arrest quotas, transfers to other prisons are frequent, and the government closely guards information about detainees from families, attorneys, and their advocates. The state of exception means little more is needed than the suspicion of an arresting officer to secure a lengthy stay in prison. Detainees are tried en masse, with no opportunity to present counter evidence — or even access to the evidence against them — and are often handed decades-long prison sentences. “People [are] being held for now three full years [since the state of exception was imposed], in some cases, without even going to trial,” Bullock says.
As the Trump administration looks to crack down on undocumented immigration — using the specter of crime, gang violence, and “terrorism” as the justification for their dismissal of established law — their playbook is looking increasingly similar to Bukele.
Over the weekend, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained a copy of a “Validation Guide,” used by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine if a Venezuelan detainee was a member of the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang, and subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century law that allows the government to arrest, detain, and deport men over the age of 14 who are citizens of an enemy nation during times of war. Citing this infamous law — which was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II — is a major stretch. The United States is not at war with Venezuela.
The guide included a points system through which suspected members are graded on their degree of suspected affiliation with the gang (scoring anything above a five is potentially enough to be declared an “alien enemy”). Criteria include tattoos and other symbolism; residing with someone declared a member of TDA; group photos featuring two or more “known” TDA members; and any form of communication with alleged members of TDA.
The administration’s guide does not require due process; the supposed links between the detainee and a criminal group are not presented as evidence before a judge at a deportation hearing. The arresting officer has discretion, much like in El Salvador.
Following the deportations in March, the Trump administration resisted releasing information regarding the identities of those arrested, and any evidence against them. The names of the more than 200 men deported were not made public until CBS News obtained the full list from an anonymous source last month.
The Trump administration admitted in court documents that “many” of those sent to El Salvador did not have criminal records. As more information about those deported was unearthed, it became clear that some of the “evidence” against them was as absurd as a tattoo of a Real Madrid CF logo, or an autism awareness tattoo.
Under the Alien Enemies Act, they have no recourse to challenge their removal, especially when they’re sent into a third country’s penal system as part of a financial agreement to hold prisoners.
The videos produced by Bukele’s government in CECOT make clear the prison is also a propaganda casting department. Inmates are more often than not shirtless, displaying large tattoos and body art supposedly indicating their affiliations with transnational gangs. It’s an image both Bukele and the Trump administration are actively searching for when they make arrests — even though, for years now, gangs have been increasingly reluctant to brand members with clearly identifying, permanent symbols and tattoos as governments crack down on organized crime. More often than not, arrests in El Salvador are based on anonymous tips to police, or social and geographic proximity to someone previously arrested.
On Tuesday, a report from The Atlantic revealed that in one court filing, the Trump administration admitted it had wrongfully deported a man with protected status to El Salvador. The man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, previously won a legal battle against the Trump administration after being accused in 2019 of being a member of the gang MS-13, and was granted protected status that should have prevented his removal to El Salvador.
While the Trump administration acknowledged that Abrego Garcia had been deported due to an “administrative error,” they claimed neither they nor the court had standing to order the U.S. government to secure his return, as he was in the custody of El Salvador and outside of their jurisdiction. Despite that logic, the Trump and Bukele administrations last week inked a “memorandum of cooperation” in which the two countries agreed to work together to deport “fugitives” who are wanted in El Salvador back to the Central American nation.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanked Bukele for his “partnership” in a video filmed inside CECOT late last month. Before a backdrop of shirtless prisoners crowded into cage-like cells, Noem — sporting a $50,000 Rolex Daytona watch — warned that CECOT is “one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”
Bullock, of Cristosal, notes that the Trump administration sending people without convictions to El Salvador with no chance to defend themselves constitutes a “forced disappearance,” a violation of international human rights law. “It also violates another principle of international law, which is called non-refoulement, he says. “Non-refoulement is an established tenant of international human rights law that prohibits nations from deporting or removing individuals under their control — regardless of their immigration status — into a situation where they are likely to face imminent harm.
Bullock continues: “[Bukele] brags about the ways that they use cruel and inhumane treatment in CECOT and our organization has documented amply systematic practices of torture generally in the prison system. So the United States, in doing this, is generating a point of inflection for the international human rights system. The outcome of this is basically the creation of this transnational penal colony where a president, a head of state, can make a deal with President Bukele and disappear undesirables indefinitely.”
Disappeared is an apt description for the state of those in El Salvador’s prisons. Cristosal and other advocacy groups working with the families of the detained say that CECOT is just “the public face” of a much larger system of prisons in El Salvador holding the vast majority of those arrested under the state of exception. The Bukele administration makes it nearly impossible to track the whereabouts of an arrestee once they’ve entered the system. Family members are not allowed contact with inmates, and are given little information on their condition and location. Release papers, if they manage to secure them, are often ignored. “We do work with hundreds of families of people, innocent people have been detained, and they don’t even know for sure if they’re alive.” Bullock says. “They bring monthly packages [of basic goods] to the prisons out of fear that their loved ones don’t think they’ve been forgotten, but they have no guarantees or assurances that they’re even there or they ever received the packages.” (In many Latin American countries, prisons do not provide basic goods for inmates, whose families are expected to collect and deliver them to detention centers on a monthly basis.)
In 2024, Cristosal published a report detailing alleged torture within El Salvador’s prison system, unreported deaths of inmates, and the systematic dissappearances of those arrested. The organization has received thousands of complaints, investigated over 1,000 specific cases of alleged abuse, and documented the deaths in custody of over 200 prisoners.
Cristosal provided Rolling Stone with recorded testimony from a former inmate named Oscar who said he and other detainees are often forced to sign confessions by arresting officers, crammed into cells with over 250 other inmates, and regularly beaten by guards. Oscar describes witnessing food deprivation, denial of medical treatment, frequent transfers (he spent time at several prisons in El Salvador), deaths of inmates due to illness or abuse, and burials in mass graves.
In a 2023 report examining in-custody deaths investigated by the state-run Institute of Legal Medicine (IML), Cristosal was able to corroborate that the institute has investigated at least 28 deaths within prisons that were likely caused by torture. The actual number is estimated to be at least in the hundreds. Deaths in custody are often reported to be the result of chronic disease or natural causes, despite inmates’ families claiming they had no known conditions before being arrested.
In the case of a 30-year-old man whose IML reports were obtained by Cristosal, “the forensic medical examination of the IML stated that he had died as a result of ‘mechanical asphyxia by strangulation.’ The corpse presented a kind of protuberance at the level of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and hematomas, possibly perpetrated with a rigid object. That is to say, he could have been strangled with a stick, club, or tonfa.”
One 24-year-old man, whose family spoke to Cristosal, died of a burst intestine theorized to have been caused by a severe beating. After an initial hospitalization due to malnutrition after seven months in prison, he was granted special release by a judge who told him that the “good news” was that a polygraph determined he was innocent — but the bad news was that he had “terminal renal insufficiency.” He told a relative shortly before he died that at Mariona Prison the “water is hot and tastes like chlorine and they hardly give us food, we get fed once a day, they don’t give us breakfast or lunch only dinner … we wait in line in a large court and everyone who gets food receives two hard blows on the back … so I stopped going out to eat so they wouldn’t hit me, because those blows hurt.”
One man previously incarcerated at Mariona testified to Cristosal that at one point, guards “showed up with a bucket of food. We arrived on a Thursday (and it was Monday), the guard asked, ‘Are you hungry?’ When we answered yes, the guard threw the food on the floor, which was full of mud and other dirt, and said, ‘You are only going to pick the food up with your mouth and if you grab it with your hands I will take you out and I will beat you,’ and gave them five seconds to pick up the food with their mouths.”
Luisa — a woman whose daughter was arrested by the regime — wondered in an interview with Cristosal why her daughter was being held prisoner. “I would like for someone to come to me and say, ‘Look, here is [the evidence against your daughter] I can prove it,’ but I’ve always said we’re not of a dual-morality.” Luisa notes that since her daughter, who was the primary source of the family’s income, was arrested, she now spends around $120 a month on supplies her daughter needs, taking them to the prison with only the vaguest assurance that they will actually reach her daughter. Thousands of families whose loved ones are lost in the system are now forced to carry a similar financial burden. “Many of them already have a letter of release, they know they are innocent, why don’t they let them go?” Luisa asks.
It’s into this system that the United States is now sending migrants without trial, with the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment being part of the system’s appeal. The families of those deported from the United States cannot deliver life-saving subsistence packages to inmates. They may not even know where they are. And they will face the additional challenge of having to contend with two hostile governments — one of which is their own — as they work to extricate their loved ones from a foreign penitentiary.
Meanwhile, the changes ushered in by the Trump administration are quickly eroding support services in El Salvador. Cristosal has had to downsize its operations significantly in the wake of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of international aid and financial assistance programs. The cuts to their operations are also taking place alongside a wave of government retaliation against activists and advocates in El Salvador. “The capacity of the human rights community in El Salvador to respond is significantly diminished,” Bullock says.
The biggest challenge, Bullock explains, is helping the families of those who are detained or missing navigate a system in El Salvador that is increasingly serving the interests of the president rather than the people — a pattern he says mirrors the changes rapidly taking place in the United States. “Bukele often talked about his popularity and his electoral victories as a source of legitimacy that makes any institution or norm that doesn’t align with him, illegitimate,” he says. “You hear that same language with President Trump.”
The public dialogue taking place between Bukele and the Trump administration is undeniable. In the aftermath of U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg’s attempt to block the deportation flights, Bukele echoed Republican complaints of obstruction and claimed that the U.S. was “facing a judicial coup” on social media. Bukele would know all about it, given that one of his first actions upon gaining control of the legislature in 2021 was to launch a judicial coup within El Salvador. Five Supreme Court justices and the attorney general — who had ruled against Bukele’s attempts at overreach — were removed from their positions via votes by the legislature, and replaced by Bukele loyalists.
From López’s perspective in El Salvador, the similarities between the two men — and the manner in which they approach power — is clear. “One has to understand that the limits [placed on power] are for the population,” she says.
Checks and balances are often explained as a mechanism to prevent discord between branches of a government, or resolve disputes, but López argues that their primary function is the “protection of the population” from government abuses and overreach. When those protective systems are attacked and dismantled “the population ends up suffering those consequences.”
Trump is currently testing the limits of the United States’ checks and balances, seizing power for the executive through initiatives like he and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), daring the courts to defy him, and threatening consequences if they do. El Salvador’s state of exception has only been in place for three years — ages for those in it, a blink in the timeline of global politics — but it’s been long enough for democratic norms to crumble virtually unopposed.
In a 2023 speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Bukele defended his attacks against El Salvador’s judiciary, telling the international community that if his party “had left the same general prosecutor as before, if we had left the magistrates of the previous chamber, if we had left the judges, who many protected and who even issued convictions when we removed them, we would still be the murder capital of the world. If we had listened to them, we would still be losing thousands of Salvadorans to terrorists.”
Bukele made similar statements during a decidedly Trumpian speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last year. He received raucous applause after telling the audience that in order to “cleanse our society,” his government embraced the “unthinkable” and removed “corrupt judges, and corrupt attorneys, and prosecutors,” who — according to him — were practically supportive of the violent criminals he sought to thwart.
Trump’s inauguration earlier this year brought with it a purge of career prosecutors and federal attorneys who the president deemed disloyal to the cause, and now threats of impeachment or investigation against jurists who don’t let him have his way. Foreign student activists opposing American policies toward Israel and Gaza have been arrested, stripped of their visas, and deported. “It’s the classic authoritarian proposition that ‘I as the leader am uniquely equipped to solve this crisis and everyone else needs to get out of my way,’” says Bullock.
“Leaders constantly need emergencies in order to justify the concentration of power, the capture of the state itself, and also they need to create the image of an internal enemy,” Bullock explains.
Trump has centered his political career around a drumbeat of fear mongering over “invasions” by criminal gangs and undocumented migrants, positioning himself as the only one who can combat them. The beat grew especially intense down the stretch of his most recent presidential campaign. In October, just weeks before the election, Trump drew widespread backlash after repeatedly stating that he intended to squash the threat of the “enemy from within.” One of his first actions upon assuming office in January was to sign an executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border, and he’s since used this imaginary war against immigrants as a predicate for a fascist crackdown — one many Americans never thought they’d see.
“This deceptive bargain between security and rights will only take the American people down a pathway of loss of rights for all people,” Bullock adds. “A leader who offers that bargain to their population doesn’t do it out of a concern for security, rather to concentrate power and to capture institutions.”