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Court Disclosure Shows U.S. Paid El Salvador $4.7 Million to Jail Deportees Without Safeguards

The filing details funding rules that cut off access to counsel, omitting any protections for how detainees would be treated at CECOT.

President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 14, 2025. Trump on Monday hosted El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, the self-described "world's coolest dictator" who is now the US leader's key ally in a controversial push to deport illegal migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison. p administration to facilitate.
Prisoners look out of their cell at maximum security penitentiary CECOT (Center for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism) on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.

Overview

  • A March 22 memo made public in litigation shows a $4.67–$4.76 million U.S. payment to El Salvador to hold up to 300 alleged Tren de Aragua members at the CECOT mega‑prison for up to a year.
  • The agreement bars use of funds for legal counseling on asylum and includes exclusions covering migration caravans, abortion lobbying, DEI-related programs, and transfers to UNRWA.
  • The document imposes no requirements to prevent torture, abuse, or indefinite confinement at a facility widely criticized by human-rights groups.
  • Flights carrying detainees to El Salvador departed even as a judge ordered them halted, and a federal appeals court has since curbed the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for these removals.
  • More than 250 Venezuelans were later released in a July prisoner swap returning them to Caracas, while lawsuits, contempt inquiries, and claims by former detainees continue, according to filings by Democracy Forward and RFK Human Rights.