By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-31 22:52:38 | Updated at 2025-04-02 10:31:24
1 day ago
The latest planeload of alleged gang members deported from the US to El Salvador’s “hellhole” prison includes child rapists, murderers, pimps and drug dealers, according to the White House.
Seventeen alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members deported from the US were flown in shackles to an El Salvadoran tarmac Sunday night, where they were met by a convoy of heavily-armed soldiers and whisked away to the notoriously brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Each of the men were identified by the White House as illegal aliens swept up in President Trump’s immigration crackdown, and included convicted or suspected criminals with a laundry list of horrifying convictions and charges.
Of the seventeen, six carried charges of child molestation, and one was charged with rape, according to a White House officials.
The identities of the suspects were first reporting by Bill Melugin of Fox News.
Three of them had criminal records for homicide, and one for kidnapping.
Weapons, drugs, and prostitution charges were also represented across the crew.
Almost all hailed from El Salvador or Venezuela, and were either confessed or suspected members of the violent Latin American street gangs that have infiltrated the US.
“The Department of Defense completed a successful counterterrorism mission this weekend, in partnership with El Salvador,” told The Post. “We commend the actions of our military personnel to degrade Foreign Terrorist Organizations under the leadership of President Trump.”
After being rushed off their plane into awaiting armored cars the gang members were hauled off to CECOT, where their heads were shaved and they were locked in the prison’s massive communal cells.
El Salvador has agreed to house gang members deported from the US at the notoriously brutal prison, which opened two years ago as the Central American country began its own crackdown on gangs that had subsumed its society.
Prisoners at CECOT are housed in 70-person cells without mattresses or pillows, which they’re only allowed out of for 30 minutes of indoor exercise per day.
Most are never expected to see the sun again after being locked up inside.
The first batch of suspected gang members were shipped there from the US earlier in March and have been locked up ever since.
That group was sent south using the rarely-used Alien Enemies Act, which Trump invoked to ship deportees out of country without a trial.
But since usage of that act was blocked by a federal judge — and is currently the subject of a federal court fight — the 17 deportees sent to CECOT Sunday were removed using deportation orders that had previously been levied against them, according to the White House.
Sunday’s arrivals are the latest indication that the Trump administration isn’t going to let legal battles slow down its efforts to kick alleged gang members out of the country.
Just last week, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT during a tour of Latin America, where she posted a video in front of prisoners and requested more space for US inmates in the lockup.
On Fox News Monday, Noem said, “people need to see that image … that is a consequence of someone who is a terrorist.”
