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Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem paid a visit to El Salvador.
Her goal was to have a look at the prison where the United States has shipped Tren de Aragua gang members, along with other violent illegal immigrants.
Noem, 53, arrived at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where 250 suspected Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members were shipped from the US by President Trump earlier this month.
They joined 15,000 inmates already held at the infamous lockup — which is known for deliberately dehumanizing conditions intended to serve as the ultimate deterrent in El Salvador’s years-long battle against gang violence.
There she viewed rows of tattooed inmates standing obediently along the bars of their massive but crammed cells and got a glimpse of the arsenal of heavy weaponry — including assault rifles — the prison’s army of guards use to maintain order.
“No one expects that these people can go back to society and behave,” said Gustavo Villatoro, El Salvador’s minister of justice and public security, as he led Noem on a tour through the sweltering prisoner barracks, according to a press pool report.
I toured the CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW.
If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison. pic.twitter.com/OItDqNsFxM
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 26, 2025
While the legal battle continues over the use of the Alien Enemies Act, it is worth remembering that not all of those criminals sent to El Salvador were deported under that law.
A senior Trump administration official confirmed to Fox News this month that a total of 261 illegal aliens were deported to El Salvador on March 15. The majority of them were deported via the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows for the expulsion of an enemy nation’s natives and citizens without a hearing.
More than 100 of the migrants were Venezuelans removed via Title 8, while 21 others were Salvadoran MS-13 gang members, the official added. Two were MS-13 ringleaders and “special cases” for El Salvador.
Obviously, if the person being deported was from El Salvador originally, then they have been repatriated to their home country. One can argue about El Salvador’s methods, but they have been dealing with MS-13 for years now. A Title 8 removal refers to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which means that those migrants have been through the system, had their cases adjudicated, and ordered removed from the country. Venezuela initially refused to accept their returned citizens (especially gang members), but recently did allow a flight to land last Sunday.
While the visuals are unpleasant, the American public is still firmly in favor of the Trump administration’s progress on immigration. It remains Trump’s most popular policy, and thanks to the changes at the border, illegal crossings are at their lowest levels in decades. As Trump so aptly noted during his joint address to Congress, all we needed was a new president to fix the border.
However, the legal battle to stop the deportations is continuing. As we have covered on this blog, Judge James Boasberg has set himself up to take on all the important cases in D.C. federal court. Boasberg had tried to get flights turned around, and when that didn’t happen, he again ruled and blocked the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport gang members. The Trump administration then appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who handed down a ruling yesterday afternoon.
A federal appellate court declined to issue a stay on a lower court’s orders in a suit challenging the Trump administration’s authority to deport Venezuelan nationals via a 1798 wartime law.
In a 2-1 decision Wednesday, a three-judge panel sided with the plaintiffs in the suit, further blocking the Trump administration’s ability to move forward with its deportation agenda.
Judges Karen Henderson, Patricia Millett and Justin Walker of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals presided over Monday’s oral arguments, which they agreed to hear last week on an expedited basis.
Despite the Chief Justice’s commentary earlier, and the earlier attempt to get the Supreme Court to deal with the temporary restraining orders (TROs) that district judges have been imposing on the entire nation, it seems that SCOTUS is going to be taking this on, and very soon.
The Trump admin can now go to the US Supreme Court for emergency relief and seek to have deportations under the Alien Enemies Act resume.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 26, 2025
But there are multiple cases that are now wending their way through the courts where a district judge has blocked the Trump administration from implementing new policy, and imposing that view on the federal government as a whole from the bench. The Supreme Court has now multiple cases headed their way, and on top of all the incoming policy questions, they are going to have to decide just how far the power of a single district judge stretches.
2/2 Full decision. Trump will need to appeal this to Supreme Court. Question is how will Supreme Court handle 6-10 requests for stays where cases involve many similar issues but where little has been litigated but infringement on Executive is huge? https://t.co/GkCd4MpPOm
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) March 27, 2025
While the application and legality of the Alien Enemies Act will be decided by SCOTUS, it’s clear that the Trump administration plans to use El Salvador’s prisons again – once they get the go-ahead to do so. Secretary Noem is sending a message to those here illegally – leave now while you can decide your own fate. The numbers at the southern border reflect that the message there has been received, loud and clear. Will a glimpse into these prisons be enough to convince illegals to get out while they can? We will have to wait and see.
Featured image: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, via U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Flickr account, cropped, public domain
GWB says: She didn’t take her shotgun? Would the El Salvador president have lent her one?
GWB says: Yeah, these images are ugly.
And uglier because it was a photo op. While I think sending these a**holes home is paramount to re-asserting our sovereignty and regaining control of our country, lining them up so they can be a backdrop to Noem speechifying is not cool. I do not like using human beings as props in any case, and using those who have no choice in the matter is worse, IMO.
And tell the courts you no longer care what they have to say, since you’re exercising your authority under the law and the Constitution. And they are not.
A reader says: Wait, didn’t this author have family in Japanese “internment” camps during WWII? Would she have been ok with images or video from the camps used to justify their imprisonment? Due process applies to EVERYONE in the US, even non-citizens. Clearly she doesn’t understand that or is choosing to ignore it.
For anyone defending this, I invite you to Google “pictures of prisoners in beds at concentration camps.” You may find the images eerily similar to the ones from Noem’s video. And BTW taking the video violates the Geneva convention, but who cares about that? They aren’t human in the same way the Nazis didn’t view their prisoners as human, right?
If you are ok with this, yet again, you show what side of history you’d be standing on, Dehumanizing anyone by making it ok for them to be sent to a brutal prison is not ok no matter who they are, or what documentation they may or may not have. Oh and BTW, exactly zero of them have been convicted of committed crimes or have been proven to be part of the gang. Don’t believe me? Look it up! Some of them were targeted solely because of tattoos, some of which are in support of Autism awareness!
Cameron says: These people invaded our country and were criminals already which meant that they have no right to be there. I’m sorry the janitor at your office got deported but that’s not our problem.
And BTW taking the video violates the Geneva convention, but who cares about that?
God damn, kid. You’re throwing all sorts of shit to see what sticks. The Geneva Convention (Notice the capital C? You’d have known the proper term if you weren’t a paint huffer) only applies to armed combatants in a war zone.
Stop being inferior. You’ll be much happier in life.
GWB says: taking the video violates the Geneva convention
They’re not POWs, doofus.
You’re a jerk, always trying to claim moral (Progressive morals, though) righteousness, as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.
exactly zero of them have been convicted of committed crimes
Not true, at all. And it doesn’t require being convicted to be booted out of an America you illegally entered – mere charges is adequate to make you a non-invitee.
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