The headlines and what is written in between them is why.

It’s the government rhetorically asking “Do you wanna see a magic trick?”

Because Trump is having the US pay them a lot of money to take these prisoners.

The president of El Salvador is a pure blooded MAGAt, idolizes Trump and will absolutely do anything for him

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.

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.

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.

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?

If that is the only reason you can think of, you need to work on your creativity. Lol

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.

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.

While I agree, who is going to do the prosecution? The DOJ is compromised.

Murder, Human trafficking, contempt of court, kidnapping… long list,

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sadly, you can.

Friend died recently. I know you can.

25k

Depends, what’s your neighbor look like?

If your neighbor causes enough trouble for Trump, we might just find out.

We’re literally paying El Salvador to take these folks. We hold the purse strings in this case.