'No privileges' for US deportees in brutal El Salvador prison

Men deported by the US to El Salvador's notorious Cecot prison are living in "the same" conditions as convicted gangsters held there, prison director Belarmino García said overnight, during an exclusive tour for CNN, the first US news organisation to visit the facility since the latest deportation flight.

García would not discuss any specifics around the deportees beyond confirming they are in his facility.

But when pressed, he said "there are no privileges."

That would mean the deportees' heads have been shaved and they are kept in communal cells holding up to 100 men each for 23.5 hours a day.

Two sources told CNN the situation is less regimented for the deportees, but the facilities are the same. The cells have no privacy, and no furniture beyond rows of stacked metal bunks with no mattresses or pillows.

Some 278 men have been deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador, accused of being members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang or Salvadorans who are said to be part of MS-13.

But they also include Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker and father-of-three from Maryland, who was mistakenly removed from the US through an "administrative error."

His case is now with the US Supreme Court, which extended the deadline of a lower court judge requiring the administration to get him back by midnight on Monday.

CNN was not permitted to go inside Sector 8 of Cecot, officially known as the Terrorism Confinement Centre, where the deportees are being held.

García said he was not familiar with the specifics of any individual of the deportees and could not comment further.`

But when CNN asked, he was happy to show how Salvadoran inmates were able to participate should they have their own court hearings.

They are removed from their communal cell by armed personnel and taken to a room with video conference facilities. Monitors showed court proceedings in progress, apparently with lawyers and judges present.

Cecot houses both convicted criminals and those still going through El Salvador's court system. With many constitutional rights suspended under El Salvador's years-long state of emergency, some people have been detained by mistake, President Nayib Bukele has admitted; several thousand of them have already been released.

Where the lights are always on

Each of the eight sectors is fully self-contained with these conference rooms as well as a medical clinic, with the intention that inmates never step outside their warehouse-like building.

They are watched through the bars constantly, lights are always on, García said, and there are even guards on catwalks above the cells.

Looking down through the metal-grille ceiling into a cell, the deliberate harshness of the life for the Salvadoran inmates – both convicted and awaiting trial – is clear. They are allowed no personal possessions; they have to use an open toilet and there's a cement basin for washing and large jug for drinking water.

Still, there are checks for contraband when the inmates are "extricated" from the cells. The men have their hands cuffed behind them and then run to sit in a designated spot, stretching their legs around those of the man in front in what becomes a human herringbone pattern.

When Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited CECOT last month, she recorded a video message to say to undocumented immigrants in the US: "This is one of the consequences you could face."

"First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed, and you will be prosecuted," she said.

"But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people."

CNN visited Cecot late last year, the first major US news organisation to be allowed inside the isolated facility that was built away from any town.

It is busier inside now, with more men in each cell.

Last year, García would only say between 10,000 and 20,000 inmates were being held. Now he says it's getting closer to its 40,000 maximum population, but once again declined to give a specific number, citing security precautions. The growth would include the deportees from the US, but be mostly Salvadorans continuing to be rounded up under the emergency situation introduced by Bukele.

A thousand or more armed guards rotate through duty at the prison, built in just seven months and opened in January 2023. The prison is also ringed by multiple electrified fences and 19 watchtowers.

For critics, Cecot is a sign of how quickly rights can disappear. But for many in El Salvador it continues to be proof of effective control and a return to security in what was once the "murder capital of the world."

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'No privileges' for US deportees in brutal El Salvador prison

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