Noem threatens to send more immigrants to El Salvador prison

Kristi L. Noem, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, threatened Wednesday to send more immigrants from the United States to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador that has become a black hole for Venezuelans spirited out of the United States with no judicial hearing.

The Trump administration is locked in a court battle over whether it acted improperly in expelling the Venezuelans, who are accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang. A U.S. judge is investigating whether the government defied his order on March 15 to stop their transfer. The Trump administration maintains the ruling didn’t apply to the expulsion.

Despite the legal standoff, Noem said after a visit to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, that the administration was prepared to send more migrants there.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” the secretary said in a video post, standing in front of a cell packed with shirtless, tattooed prisoners. It was unclear if the men had anything to do with the Trump administration’s recent removals. “This facility is one of the tools in our tool kit, that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”

Noem was scheduled to meet Wednesday with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele “to discuss how we can increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the U.S.,” according to a post on X by the Department of Homeland Security.

Bukele offered last month to take in dangerous criminals held in U.S. detention facilities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had previously complained about Venezuela’s refusal to accept deported migrants, said the deal would “save our taxpayer dollars.” The U.S. agreed to pay $6 million a year to keep them at the CECOT prison.

But the prisoners have no clear access to either the Salvadoran or U.S. justice systems. “They are in a legal limbo,” said Enrique Anaya, a Salvadoran constitutional lawyer.

Several of their families have said they are not gang members at all, just migrants who had tattoos. The U.S. government has acknowledged that many did not have criminal records in the United States.

In El Salvador, “they aren’t sentenced, they didn’t commit crimes, they weren’t tourists. What is the migration status of these people?” asked Napoleón Campos, a Salvadoran attorney specializing in international law.

Noem, in a blue ICE baseball hat and gray drawstring pants, toured the prison complex outside the capital with El Salvador’s justice minister, Gustavo Villatoro. They entered one detention area, Cell 8, where some of the Venezuelans are being held. The inmates stood in white T-shirts and cotton shorts in the hot, unair-conditioned cell, looking silently at the visitors.

The Salvadoran minister pointed out one man’s star-shaped tattoo, telling Noem it was a marker of Tren de Aragua. But organized-crime experts caution against determining gang membership on the basis of tattoos, noting that many of the designs are common in Latin America.

When Noem and the minister left the cell, it erupted in noise, including chants that were indecipherable, according to a press pool report.

The U.S. delegation then was taken to another cell that Villatoro said held Salvadoran prisoners. One man, the minister said, was serving a 465-year sentence for homicide and terrorism crimes. “No one expects that these people can go back to society and behave,” he said.

On Monday, lawyers hired by the Venezuelan government, who said they represented 30 of the detainees, submitted a habeas corpus petition for all the jailed Venezuelans.

“There is no legal basis for their detentions,” the lawyers argued in their submission to the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court. They asked for the men’s release.

Legal experts said that request was unlikely to be granted. The chamber’s judges were installed after Bukele’s party won a congressional majority in 2021. They have consistently backed the president.

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CECOT is one of Latin America’s largest prisons

The 238 Venezuelans arrived in San Salvador on three U.S. planes, along with 23 Salvadorans accused of belonging to the ruthless MS-13 gang. The Trump administration used an 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to expel 137 of the Venezuelans — essentially arguing they belonged to an invading force linked to the Venezuelan government. The act allows expedited deportation of noncitizens. The other 101 Venezuelans were removed under traditional immigration law. Bukele described all of them as members of Tren de Aragua, which was designated a terrorist group last month by the U.S. government.

The Trump administration has removed other undocumented migrants to third-party countries — deporting more than 400 people from countries such as China and Iran to Panama and Costa Rica last month.

The difference this time is that the migrants were jailed like criminals. The CECOT prison, built for 40,000, is known for its harsh conditions. Up to 70 men share a single cell, and they sleep on metal bunks with no mattresses, according to journalists who have been to the prison. The inmates are not allowed visits by their relatives or lawyers.

It wasn’t clear when — or if — the Venezuelans would ever be tried or freed.

Noah Bullock, executive director of the human rights group Cristosal, said that President Donald Trump and Bukele had usurped from the courts the power to determine who was a criminal.

“Nobody here is waving the flag of Tren de Aragua,” he said. “But do you want the president to have the right to determine who is a terrorist and who has rights — and who doesn’t?”

Rubio has likened the removal of the Venezuelans to a counterterrorism operation. The State Department referred questions on the Salvadoran detention of the Venezuelans to DHS and the Salvadoran government.

Asked for comment, the Justice Department responded with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s statement after U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg’s initial order blocking the removal of the Venezuelans. Bondi said at that point that the ruling “disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power.”

Salvadoran attorneys said that, in order for the U.S. government to legally outsource prisoners to El Salvador, the countries would have to sign a treaty or convention, and get the approval of their legislatures. In such a treaty, “you’d have to spell out who would have legal jurisdiction over these people — the United States or El Salvador,” Anaya said.

The Salvadoran presidential commissioner for human rights, Andrés Guzmán, did not respond to a request for comment.