By Paul Serran and Frank Parlato
The dictator of El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, has offered to house U.S. prisoners in its mega-prison, the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), a maximum-security facility with 40,000 inmates.
On Monday, Dictator Nayib Bukele announced he would accept U.S. “convicted criminals” and charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “an incredible offer, an unprecedented one.”
He added, “We have a constitution, we have all sorts of things, but it’s a very generous offer.”
President Trump declared he would enact the plan “in a heartbeat” if he had the legal right to do so.
“We’re looking at that right now, but we could make deals where we’d get these animals out of our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio see possibilities in deporting US prisoners to El Salvador.
The knotty legal question is whether the U.S. government can deport its own citizens—an issue that, if true, offers a slippery slope of possibilities.
El Salvador Dictator Nayib Bukele
Dictator Bukele, who refers to himself as the Presidente de El Salvador, launched CECOT in 2023. The prison is equipped with a non-decorative 15,000-volt electric fence, making escape problematic, so the likelihood of these animals returning to America is minuscule.
CECOT maintains an orderly schedule, confining inmates to their cells for 23.5 hours each day. While the facility serves meals twice a day, skipping a meal has proven to be a cost-saving measure.
Prisoners eat with their hands, since utensils are costly and could be useful weapons.
Each cell, which houses over 100 inmates, has a hole in the floor for urination and defecation. Without toilet paper or running water, prisoners rely on their hands and spittle for cleaning.
The 100-man cells measure 322 square feet (30 square meters), or about 16 feet by 20 feet, providing each prisoner with more than three square feet of space.
To economize space, the prison equips each cell with 80 triple-stacked steel bunks (without mattresses, blankets, or pillows, a needless burden in a warm climate). With 100 prisoners sharing 80 bunks, decisions about alternating on bunks and/or sleeping on the floor become a problem-solving opportunity.
To avoid outside distractions, the prison cells do not have windows, so fluorescent lights are left on 24/7 to prevent conditions that darkness might occasion with 100 men in a cell the size of three parking spaces.
The cells do not have sinks or showers, but guards allow prisoners to use communal facilities for 30 minutes daily.
For penological reasons, inmates are not permitted visits, phone calls, emails, or letters.
CECOT provides medical care for comatose prisoners, and a cemetery behind the compound offers a quiet, unmarked resting place for deceased inmates. CECOT does not disturb families of deceased prisoners with unhappy news of deaths within the facility.
U.S. Secretary of State Rubio described President Bukele’s offer to take in U.S. prisoners as “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”
“No country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this,” Secretary Rubio stated.
