Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem Tours Brutal El Salvador Prison Housing Deported Migrants | EUROtoday

TECOLUCA, El Salvador (AP) — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday visited the high-security El Salvador jail the place Venezuelans who the Trump administration alleges are gang members have been held since their elimination from the United States. The tour included two crowded cell blocks, the armory and an isolation unit.

Noem’s journey to the jail — the place inmates are packed into cells and by no means allowed outdoors — comes because the Trump administration seeks to indicate it’s deporting folks it describes because the “worst of the worst.”

The Trump administration is arguing in federal courtroom that it was justified in sending the Venezuelans to El Salvador, whereas activists say officers have despatched them to a jail rife with human rights abuses whereas presenting little proof that they have been a part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.

Noem notably dodged questions by the press about if the Venezuelan deportees have been going to be within the jail indefinitely and if the Venezuelans may ever be introduced again to the U.S. if a courtroom orders the administration to take action.

“We’re going to let the courts play out,” she advised reporters following the go to.

Noem toured an space holding among the Venezuelans accused of being gang members. In the sweltering constructing, the boys in white T-shirts and shorts stared silently from their cell, then have been heard shouting an indiscernible chant when she left.

In a cell block holding Salvadoran prisoners, a few dozen have been lined up by guards close to the entrance of their cell and advised to take away their T-shirts and face masks. The males have been closely tattooed, some bearing the letters MS, for the Mara Salvatrucha gang, on their chests.

After listening to Salvadoran officers, Noem turned her again to the cell and recorded a video message.

If an immigrant commits a criminal offense, “this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem stated. “First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. 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.”

Noem additionally met with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, a populist who has gained right-wing admiration within the U.S. as a consequence of his crackdown on the nation’s gangs, regardless of the democratic and due course of implications which have include it.

“This unprecedented relationship we have with El Salvador is going to be a model for other countries on how they can work with America,” Noem stated to reporters Wednesday.

Since taking workplace, Noem has incessantly been entrance and heart in efforts to spotlight the immigration crackdown. She took half in immigration enforcement operations, rode horses with Border Patrol brokers and was the face of a tv marketing campaign warning folks within the nation illegally to self-deport.

Noem’s Wednesday go to is a part of a three-day journey. She’ll additionally journey to Colombia and Mexico.

The Venezuelans have been faraway from the U.S. this month after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and stated the U.S. was being invaded by the Tren de Aragua gang. The Alien Enemies Act provides the president wartime powers and permits noncitizens to be deported with out the chance to go earlier than an immigration or federal courtroom choose.

An appeals courtroom Wednesday saved in place an order barring the administration from deporting extra Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador beneath the Alien Enemies Act.

A central excellent query concerning the deportees’ standing is when and the way they might ever be launched from the jail, referred to as the Terrorism Confinement Center, as they don’t seem to be serving sentences. They not seem in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s on-line detainee locator and haven’t appeared earlier than a choose in El Salvador.

The Trump administration refers to them because the “worst of the worst” however hasn’t recognized who was deported or offered proof that they’re gang members.

Relatives of among the deportees have categorically denied any gang affiliation. The Venezuelan authorities and a bunch referred to as the Families of Immigrants Committee in Venezuela employed a lawyer to assist free these held in El Salvador. A lawyer for the agency, which presently represents about 30 Venezuelans, stated they aren’t gang members and haven’t any legal information.

The U.S. authorities has acknowledged that many shouldn’t have such information.

Flights have been within the air March 15 when a federal choose issued a verbal order briefly barring the deportations and ordered planes to return to the U.S.

The Trump administration has argued that the choose’s verbal instructions didn’t depend, that solely his written order wanted to be adopted and that it couldn’t apply to flights that had already left the U.S.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt advised reporters that about 261 folks have been deported on the flights, together with 137 beneath the Alien Enemies Act.

Bukele opened the jail in 2023 as he made the Central American nation’s stark, harsh prisons a trademark of his battle towards crime. The facility has eight sprawling pavilions and might maintain as much as 40,000 inmates. Each cell can match 65 to 70 prisoners.

Prisoners can’t have guests. There are not any workshops or instructional packages.

El Salvador hasn’t had diplomatic relations with Venezuela since 2019, so the Venezuelans imprisoned there shouldn’t have consular help from their authorities.

Video launched by El Salvador’s authorities after the deportees’ arrival confirmed males exiting airplanes onto an airport tarmac lined by officers in riot gear. The males, who had their fingers and ankles shackled, struggled to stroll as officers pushed their heads down.

They have been later proven on the jail kneeling on the bottom as their heads have been shaved earlier than they turned into the jail’s all-white uniform — knee-length shorts, T-shirt, socks and rubber clogs — and positioned in cells.

For three years, El Salvador has been working beneath a state of emergency that suspends basic rights as Bukele wages an all-out assault on the nation’s highly effective road gangs. During that point, some 84,000 folks have been arrested, accused of gang ties and jailed, typically with out due course of.

Bukele provided to carry U.S. deportees within the jail when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited in February.

At the jail Wednesday, El Salvador Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro confirmed Noem a cell holding Salvadorans he stated had been there for the reason that jail opened. “No one expects that these people can go back to society and behave,” he stated.

Santana reported from Washington. Associated Press author Marcos Alemán in San Salvador, El Salvador, contributed to this report.