El Salvador blocks US senator from visiting wrongly deported Salvadoran man

Yeah that man is in pieces already
- That place has literally never released a prisoner...
  The place isn't huge, and lots of people get there sent there.
  But no one ever comes out.
  I don't think anyone can be returned from there because they put zero effort in keeping records of who is who, it's a death camp.
  
  Wow. The prison is named Cecot. I just read a few articles on it. That place is fucked up. Was built for 20,000 people, but capacity then doubled. Like 80 people to a cell with no sheets or pillows on all metal beds. A bucket of water in each cell to drink. You eat (no meat ever served) in your crowded cell that has no chairs and the lights stay on 24/7 and you only get out of your cell 30 minutes a day. The country more or less eliminated due process a few years back. No inmates are allowed visitors or phone calls or letters. Also, no books or games or playing cards or anything that could provide any sort of entertainment. If you're supposed to go before a judge it's done over video conference call. Lot of other fucked up shit, too.
  The US paid El Salvador $6,000,000 to take the 240ish people there. Like $25,000 a person.
  
  I was wondering about that. Like these people are being deported, but instead they're just in a gulag for how long.... Are they actually being repatriated to their country of origin?
  
  Not to make light of anything, but "isn't huge"?
  As of 11 June 2024, CECOT had a population of 14,532 inmates. With a capacity for 40,000 inmates, CECOT is the largest prison in Latin America and one of the largest in the world by prisoner capacity.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Confinement_Center
  
  100 people to a cell. Nope, that’s not a typo.

Tourism makes up 11% of El Salvador's GDP.
Sounds like that should change too.
- I mean I guess but I'm more disturbed by the fact that they have so much tourism given the fact they've had concentration camps for years
  Who the fuck was going to El Salvador?
  
  Latin Americans. Not United States citizens.
  
  People like tropical places
  
  The concentration camps are not years old. They're 2 years old top.

That dude is dead. They are hiding it
- 100%

When/if the judge starts arresting people involving, the charges need to be for murder. If they can prove that he's alive, the charges can be lowered to abduction and attempted murder, plus everything. Throw the fucking book at them, and find a way to make it not federal, pardonable charges.
- The state attorney general can file charges at the state level. There is no way the people who snatched the guy had a valid arrest warrant. These are just Proud Boys and Oath Keepers with badges given to them by Trump for being racists.
- While I agree, who is going to do the prosecution? The DOJ is compromised.
  
  I swear I read that a judge can appoint an independent prosecutor. Can’t remember where though.
  
  If it's civil, the DOJ can eat a bag of dicks.
  
  And the Pentagon (military) is also compromised
- Whose going to arrest them?
  US courts rarely deputize militias and even if they do the courts don't run prisons or holding cells.
  Without the consent of the executive the judicial has no power to arrest.
  
  Bounty hunters. I think we're at that point.
- Murder, Human trafficking, contempt of court, kidnapping... long list,

Can't visit a dead man.
- This is my theory too. He’s dead, and the administration doesn’t want to openly admit that an innocent man was murdered because of their racism.
  
  The current US Administration murdered Mr. Garcia.
- Dude read the fucking article and look at the pictures.
- Sadly, you can.
  Friend died recently. I know you can.
  
  Please use common sense.

Sadly, I don’t think he’s ever going to be seen again, I hope against hope that I am wrong, but that he is no longer alive is the only reason I can think of that would make them not only refuse to allow anyone to visit, but deny him passage home.
- Him being dead wouldn't be the only reason. If he's allowed back to the U.S. he'd be subject to our laws about treatment of prisoners and there's a good chance he would get word out about how bad it is in that south American concentration camp. They know they can't let that happen.
  
  Central America, and technically North America since it's north of Columbia.
- If that is the only reason you can think of, you need to work on your creativity. Lol

Did anyone actually think they'd let him see anything? Why would they.
I'm not naive enough to think he's still alive but that's beside the point.
- I think he is still alive. Bukele made agreements with the leaders of all the major gangs in El Salvador to get them to reduce violent crime. In exchange he gave some money and concessions as to how prisoners would be treated. If it comes out that prisoners are dying in CECOT, the gangs are going to treat that as Bukele breaking their agreement and violent crime will shoot up.
  Even if he's still alive, though, there's a 0% chance he, or anyone else Trump sends there, will ever come out of CECOT while Bukele or Trump is still in power. It would completely undermine so much about their regimes at this point. They are using CECOT as the ever present existential threat against opposition. It's supposed to be a black hole people go into and never leave. They can't let anyone out ever or it proves that people can get out. They don't want anyone to believe that is possible. They can't let anyone believe that is possible or it'll breed massive opposition in both countries.
  
  Bukele made agreements with the leaders of all the major gangs in El Salvador to get them to reduce violent crime. In exchange he gave some money and concessions as to how prisoners would be treated. If it comes out that prisoners are dying in CECOT, the gangs are going to treat that as Bukele breaking their agreement and violent crime will shoot up.
  This agreement makes no sense. Nobody ever leaves CECOT alive so what are these gangs supposedly gaining by agreeing to this?
  
  My personal conspiracy theory based on absolutely no evidence is that they aren't tracking who is who there so they don't know where he is and obviously everyone would say they're him.
- Realistically? No
  Ideallistically? Yes. At the least prove he is alive and ok. They had to know this would be coming and had they done this it probably quiets down some of the criticism.
- Did seriously no one bother reading the article? There are pictures of him meeting with the senator.
  
  Embarrassing yourself a bit here mate. There are no pictures of him in this article.

I don't understand what justification El Salvador has for keeping a man imprisoned who never broke any of their laws. Can I pay them to hold my neighbour in prison? How much does it cost?

a lot of people here are saying he's dead, but the press aren't. Why?
- The press are broadly beholden to journalistic standards that require multiple sources to corroborate something as fact before publishing it. Us regular jack offs have no such limitations.
  As to why people are speculating that he's dead? For one, the place does appear to be a literal death camp. Also, officials in the Administration have admitted he was deported "in error" (though there have been conflicting statements over this and at least one firing). Since any sane person would want to fix a mistake of this magnitude, you could see why them refusing to might make people wonder.
  
  The press are broadly beholden to journalistic standards that require multiple sources to corroborate something as fact before publishing it.
  You have forgotten the /s
- There is no press anymore, they have capitulated. All you have are recorders and interpreters that push whatever Trump wants or they get banned/prosecuted.
  Standard behaviour in a Fascist regime which is what the USA became under trump
  Side note: We now have confirmation that a heavily armed population providers deplorable stats on violence and school shootings while doing exactly nothing to prevent the rise of tyranny... well done USA
  
  It's just like when scientists study obvious things. We needed a rigorous and comprehensive study to show proof and the US has provided that.
  
  Side note: We now have confirmation that a heavily armed population providers deplorable stats on violence and school shootings while doing exactly nothing to prevent the rise of tyranny... well done USA
  Yeah my dude, just because I carry or have firearms doesn’t mean I’m obligated to protect you or your rights.
  YOU have an obligation to provide for your safety and to advocate for your rights.
  If there was a public shooting, I have no legal obligation to protect anyone. My goal would be to find a place of safety for me and my family and use my gun to eliminate or at least dissuade the attacker from going after me and mine. You and yours are on your own.
  We are also not nearly at the point of armed rebellion or insurrection here in the US. If you feel this strongly about it perhaps you should take responsibility for yourself and arm yourself instead of depending on others to do it for you.
- It's just speculation, but they're saying it because nobody has ever been released from CECOT. It's not unlikely that they are just murdering the inmates and pocketing the money that the United States is giving them, or not sufficiently protecting inmates from violence between other inmates.
  
  It’s not unlikely that they are just murdering the inmates
  I do think that's rather unlikely. After Bukele came into power promising a massive reduction in violent crime he met with the leaders of all the major gangs in El Salvador. He asked them tor reduce violent crime in exchange for payoffs and a promise of improved conditions for prisoners. Within 2 years of that agreement violent crime in El Salvador reached the lowest point it's been in 30 years. If it comes out that prisoners in CECOT are dying, that agreement disappears and violent crime skyrockets. That would completely undermine Bukele's basis of support.
- Because they're all afraid of reprisals from the trump regime
- The press are just government cheerleaders these days

My guess is they are already dead

Because he's probably dead or at least has had something happen to him they don't want getting out
- There are plenty of other wrongly imprisoned people down there that the senator could be given an access to. They’re not all dead yet I’m hoping.
  
  Yeah but to give some form of access to them, they'd need to actually know who's dead and who isn't. Given the overcrowded state of it, and the US's lack of treating people as human, they may have no idea who's still alive.

He's dead.

gasp, they won't let him visit the guy that went through the death camp?
gasp

He's dead. Calling it now.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not following every nuance about the deportations - but can someone point me in the direction to understand why El Salvador? Why there?
- They're not deportations because the people being sent there are not from there.
  Bukele, the Salvadorian ruler, is a fellow authoritarian, and told Marco Rubio he would disappear whoever they wanted for cash.
  Guantanamo Bay is US territory, and our government would be responsible for what happens to these people, but by sending them to a cooperative 3rd party country, Trump and company have declared their hands clean of what happens to anyone sent there after that, and as they are out of US territory, we have no means to ever get any of them back.
  They are now talking about sending people born in the US there if they are "bad enough."
  Here is a pretty short article that gives you some more specifics if you want.
  If you've ever spoken out against the government in writing/online, are part of a labor union, or any kind of minority or LGBT or care about anyone that is, you should get up to speed on this quickly.
  
  Aw. I did not realize Bukele was also authoritarian. That was the missing part.
  Thanks!
- Trump and Bukele are ideologically alike. Bukele wants more funding for his prison, which the US is providing. The prison is basically a black-site with journalists given very limited and controlled access. For all I know, it could be a deathcamp; they do use forced labor, so it is at least a slave camp. Also, they never release anyone from there, which further raises the suspicion of it being a death camp.
- El Salvador was once rampant with violent criminal gangs, with a murder rate greater than 1 in 1000. Bukele took power on the promise of restoring peace in El Salvador. He was elected, and started rounding up gang members and imprisoning them without trial and based on their tattoos and social circles. The cops didn't care if the prisoner had comitted or even accused of a crime, if they had an MS-13 tattoo, right to jail.
  San Salvador made a deal with the US to build a megaprison called CECOT. US provided some funding and contractors, El Salvador funded the rest under a government legislation that was forced througn parliament at gunpoint when Bukele marched special forces into Parliament twice to get the bill passed.
  CECOT was set up as a maximum security prison, with security outsorced to foreign guards. It has four cell blocks, eith 16 cells each, and each cell holds up to 250 prisoners.
  All known gang members were moved there. Guards have rifles with live rounds and will kill on sight any prisoner trying to escape, resist guards, or damage prison property. The prison regimen is 23.5hrs in cell, 0.5hrs outside of the cell for exercise or prayer. Prisoners have no books, bedsheets, mattresses, or any type of item or luxury except pants, socks, underwear, and a shirt.
  Prisoners have no trial date, parole period, or chance of release. There is a 'hole' for prisoners who cause trouble, which is a bare concrete room, a hole in one corner, and a 100mm hole that lets in light in the daytime, otherwise its pitch black. Prisoners can be sent to the hole for up to 30 days.
  The prison funding deal was made with the US in exchange for the US deporting, no questions asked, any MS-13 gang member or other salvadoran illegal immigrant and having them sent straigt to CECOT so there is no possibility that they will return to the US.
  Bukele is resisting the natural impetus to check this US citizens status and, if found to be innocent, release him back to the US because this is in direct contradiction to the deal made with the US, that prisoners in CECOT never get to come back to the US. I'ts also in contravention of the CECOT policy to determine if the man is innocent or guilty, because most of the prisoners in CECOT didn't, and won't get a trial. Imprisoning innnocent people by their association with violent criminals, if even by familial connection or happnestance, is part of the radically anti-crime ethos of CECOT - Nobody gets due process because it would take too long, gum up the judicial system, and result in MS13 running rampant in El Salvador while the LEO tries to play whackamole.
  CECOT is an extreme response to an existential problem that El Salvador faced, and it achieved amazing results in terms of crime and violence reduction and a return to social stability and functional society.
  CECOT is a real-world trolley problem. How many innocent people are you willing to lock up amongst the gang members to prevent the murder of innocents out in the real world, including the civilian losses due to government Vs gang warfare if El Salvador falls entirely into an ungovernable lawless warlord-run country like Somalia?
  
  Without due process and unchecked power, Bukele’s regime are the new gangsters. You haven’t solved anything.
  
  Considering all the stuff you've written, the let's say philosophical and ambivalent conclusion there feels inappropriate. A society that puts random innocent people without trial into a death camp is not stable. It all comes off as if the system just restructured the violence (who does it to who and by what means), rather than being on the path of eliminating it...
  But it's an enlightening and valuable comment anyway, thank you. Do you know when was the deal with US made? I can't find it on Wikipedia...
  
  While I knew some of this, I will happily say I did not know it all. Thank you for taking the time to do this level of info dump.
- The president of El Salvador is a pure blooded MAGAt, idolizes Trump and will absolutely do anything for him
- The cruelty is the point. I know you're probably used to seeing that in some kind of melodramatic context, but that's actually what it is in this case. The government's narrative is that the people that they're grabbing are all insane and violent gang members and that they all deserve life in the harshest conditions possible- conditions that, I presume, are not possible under the already barely enforced eighth amendment. The Trump administration already tested those waters in Trump I with refusing to give detainees such luxuries as beds, blankets, soap, toilet paper, and lights that turn off at night, and got shut down; if they send them to El Salvador, there is no constitution (or pretense thereof) to step in and say "no, you can't do that". They've said repeatedly and out loud that the terror is the point.
  Here's the big, huge, glowing hot problem that remains, even with news media now reporting that Kilmar's wife sought a restraining order or something in 2021:
  A bunch of these folks were NEVER charged with a crime. The government never had to prove their case to a jury, never got a sentence from a judge, and never even attempted to say what crime these folks committed. They just scooped them up and sent them to a life term in supermax for ???? That's bad, like really, really, really bad. This puts us squarely in dictatorship territory, and let me be totally unambiguous here: when the government can arbitrarily sentence people to life in prison without even claiming a crime or trying the case before a jury, that is a dictatorship. We are living, right now, in this moment, in a dictatorship. If they can do it to them, they can do it to you-- and they will. In fact, they're currently discussing avenues for stripping citizenship from US citizens so they can "deport" them to El Salvador, and they've confirmed to the press that they're having those discussions. So, yes, they're coming for you, too, just not quite yet.
  P.S. if you think you're safe because you're not political, that doesn't matter, because they're political, and they think that sending you to die in an El Salvadorian prison for being gay/atheist/furry/said anything bad about Trump ever/whatever is just dandy.
- US Puppet Dictatorship filled with slave labor factories that make products for US corporations. Call it a US colony, but without the rights afforded to people if it were an official US territory, like Puerto Rico.
- The headlines and what is written in between them is why.
  It’s the government rhetorically asking “Do you wanna see a magic trick?”

Tbh this is a less bad outcome than I was concerned this was going to have (after letting him in to the prison: “Uh oh, looks like your president thinks you’re a gang member. You can just chill here forever.”)

Because the guy is prolly dead

http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6j7jjpgy6o.amp
Well at least he's not dead.

Dude is saying he can't be expected to smuggle him back into the u.s.
He didn't have any complaints smuggling him into El Salvador.

They probably executed these people

I bet he’s in this pile

Let's start bombing shit. Or just killing folks. I fucking hate Trump but this is an American and other countries need to understand our citizens are not fair game.
- you're probably on a domestic terrorism watchlist now lol
  
  Because I've suggested America use it's military to bomb the literal fuck out a country that's not in Europe?
  Okay, Sherlock.
- Why would they see it that way if your own government clearly doesn't?
- He's Salvadoran. The whole thing is fucked up and wrong, but they didn't deport an American citizen. (Yet.)

USians are discovering real fast they dont call the shots anywhere else.
- We're literally paying El Salvador to take these folks. We hold the purse strings in this case.
  
  Americans are absolutely calling the shots here. That's why El Salvador has him and is keeping him: because the US government is paying them to do so.
- I’m dead serious you might be the dumbest person on this platform