Being Sent to CECOT is an Inhumane, Slow-Motion Death Sentence
To the Trump administation this a feature, not a bug.
I have argued many times that we cannot rely on the inherent goodness of human beings in order to have good government. One of the key passages that I have quoted many times is the following from James Madison in Federalist 51.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
In brief terms, this means that humans are flawed and need the structure of government in ways that wholly good, heavenly beings would not. In short, we need rules to bind our behavior. It also underscores that government, which consists of decidedly unheavenly humans, needs constraints. I have also long cited Plato and Artistotle who argued that a singular wise and virtuous ruler would be best, but such a person is hard (if not impossible) to find and that even if you find one, their successor would like be a terrible tyrant (that’s a quick precis of two rather complicated works, so take my summary in that spirit).
But what we are seeing with the Trump administration is, first, a government populated not by angels, but sadly not just run-of-the-mill humans. Instead, we are getting government by heartless devils (to keep with the metaphor).
We are also seeing the failure of the rules that are supposed to bind bad actors, i.e., Congress is not acting as a check on the executive, and it is unclear if the courts will be able to actually do so.
As was noted in the discussion of my post on the defiant attitude being displayed by the Trump administration as it pertains to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s illegal (that’s SCOTUS’ word to describe the situation) rendition to CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo or Center for Terrorism Confinement) in El Salvador, any even semi-decent set of human beings who admitted that they sent Abrego Garcia to CECOT by mistake would be tripping over themselves to bring him back instead of what the Trump admininstration is doing.
It is clear that they do. not. care.
Let me be specific about the known conditions in CECOT.
Here is an account of a tour taken by a journalist and given by the warden, Inside CECOT, The Prison that Nobody Leaves. Keep in mind this was stuff the prison wanted seen and reported.
“It is impossible to escape. These psychopaths will spend their whole lives behind these bars.” The warden of the maximum security prison, located in the municipality of Tecoluca, uses those words to describe the extreme security measures under which the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT, for its Spanish acronym) has been built.
[…]
Each cell inside the CECOT has room for 80 inmates, as per the amount of metal bunk beds. But throughout the tour, the warden failed to provide the exact number of each. “Where there’s room for 10, there’s room for 20 or 100,” was his response to the questions posed by journalists.
[…]
Family visitation is not allowed. In fact, there are no visitations at all, due to the criminal profile of each inmate.
[…]
It is forbidden to ask questions to the inmates.
[…]
Inmates are locked up all day. They only leave for 30 minutes for a walk through the main hall wearing hand and feet cuffs. The only activity they can do inside their cells is reading the Bible, but that privilege is not for all.
Again, this is the “positive” version of the prison.
Here are more details from a Human Rights Watch report.
People held in CECOT, as well as in other prisons in El Salvador, are denied communication with their relatives and lawyers, and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time. The Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as “terrorists,” and has said that they “will never leave.” Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison. The government of El Salvador denies human rights groups access to its prisons and has only allowed journalists and social media influencers to visit CECOT under highly controlled circumstances.
[…]
While CECOT is likely to have more modern technology and infrastructure than other prisons in El Salvador, I understand the mistreatment of detainees there to be in large part similar to what Human Rights Watch has documented in other prisons in El Salvador, including Izalco, La Esperanza (Mariona) and Santa Ana prisons. This includes cases of torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food.
I would recommend reading the whole thing, which provides a larger context for the behavior of the Bukele regime as it pertains to human rights abuses in the name of law and order and to the known conditions in prisons in El Salvador other than CECOT.
Anyone who thinks that there isn’t systematic violence, torture, and various human rights violations within the walls of CECOT is engaging in utter denial.
Even for “the worst of the worst,” these are unacceptably inhumane conditions.
The notion, however, that the government of the United States knows that it sent an innocent person and seems indifferent to the situation is just stomach-churning and grotesque.
And, of course, we have every reason to believe that some significant number of the 200+ persons rendered to this detention camp in El Salvador are likewise innocent. And even if they are guilty of being in the country illegally or even being members of a gang, they don’t qualify as terrorists, let alone the “worst of the worst.”
I again note: CECOT is a human rights abuse factory that no one should be imprisoned in. Sending people there without due process is a gross violation of human decency. Knowing that a person was sent there in error is just beyond any level of acceptable.
Not only does the Trump administration not care, but they are fighting in court for the right to avoid fixing the situation.
This is all a cruel game to the administration. As was also noted in the comments, our Secretary of Homeland Security confirmed this week her view of how great permanent imprisonment at CECOT is. Via Axios:
“We’re confident that people that are [imprisoned in El Salvador] should be there, and they should stay there for the rest of their lives,” Noem said after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) event.
I would remind the readers that one of the main ways a lot of these folks were sentenced to life imprisonment was through tattoo interpretation by ICE agents. I note that in the linked post above, but also the Axios piece notes:
In the case of Tren de Aragua, a tattoo “denoting membership/loyalty to TDA” would count four points toward a removal action, according to the document. If a person admits being a gang member, that alone would be enough for removal from the U.S.
So, just a given agent’s interpretation of ink counts halfway towards deportation (although it is unclear to me how many points they need to be removed). And while I agree that being a member of TdA is not good, does mere membership justify life imprisonment? Worse, life imprisonment under the conditions described?
This is all simply evil. And that is not a term I deploy lightly.
To return to Madison’s metaphor, what is more demonic than casting an innocent man into Hell and celebrating it? Or, celebrating Hell as a general matter?
One of the various factors that led to my break with the Republicans party many years ago was the Bush administration’s embrace of torture. This is ratcheting up that embrace in a truly horrifying way.
None of this is justice.
By the way, via Newsweek, Donald Trump Says He Loves Idea of Sending Americans to El Salvador Prison.
After all, he is just talking about criminals. They aren’t really people, right?
…casting a demonic man into Heaven?
Russell Vought and Mike Johnson, to name a couple of the most prominent proudly Christian Republican leaders of the moment, have been unequivocal in their determination that Trump was chosen by God to bring the theocratic state they desire. Claiming the mantel of Jesus to commit evil is as demonic as it gets.
@Scott F.:
In the past, I’ve not agreed with you as often as I might like to, but I’ll give you props for that. Well said! Hear, hear!
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are in DC”.
I had a very civil back-and-forth with @Andy the other day, on whether the US is now a villain in the world, and what that means to each of us. I won’t characterize Andy, but my take is no, we don’t owe loyalty to a villain. My loyalties are to my ideals, freedom, justice, tolerance, and above all, Truth with a capital T. I don’t give a damn about land of my birth or land generally.
Is this different from times when we’ve had a bad president who does bad things? Yes, IMO. Because what we have now is not a failure of an administration, but the complete moral collapse of the American people. These are voters who have in their pockets immediate access to all recorded human knowledge, and they are not just incapable of differentiating truth from lies, they are indifferent to truth, indeed they seek out and prefer lies.
I’m not much comforted by the notion that we’re just talking about half the country. The craven surrender by much of academia, law firms, media, law enforcement, and the legislative branch is not just more of the same. The rise of Christianist fanatics and their hold on power is not just more of the same. This government is evil, and their supporters range from lazy ignoramuses to evil men and women. I owe nothing to this government or those people.
@Michael Reynolds:
Red letter day! Agrees Luddite with you.
However, please keep kind thoughts for those of us who are trapped within these dystopian borders. Believe me, those without the ability, power, or means to flee to safer climes envy those of you who can.
@Michael Reynolds:
I get that this is meant as a dramatic turn of phrase, but I will continue to bristle at the idea that this is a failure of the American People writ large. Yes, Trump won the popular vote. Yes, it shouldn’t have been close. Yes, I also owe nothing to this government or those people who voted for him.
But, I owe it to myself to not cede the national label of “American” to these f*ckers, either. Despite his claims of mandate, Trump won by the slimmest of margins. The anti-majority elements of our electoral system (that have been bemoaned in great detail over the years here at OTB) were very much in play during the primary and general elections. Historic levels of polarization grip the population, driven by the profitability of stoking fear and resentment in the market of ideas. Our constitutional checks & balances, both Congress and SCOTUS, failed miserably in their duty to disqualify Trump (through impeachment or ballot access rulings) from ever getting close to exploiting the voting public’s civic shallowness.
I’m not much comforted by any of these excuses for half the country empowering Trump, either. But, neither am I keen to write off the other half of the country for not doing enough. Our country’s salvation lies in the enfranchisement of that half before the balance tips to the evil ones irrevocably. I believe (I have to believe) that there is still opportunity to tip the balance the other way.
I also agree that my loyalty is not to any particular person regardless to their office but to the ideals of America and to the Constitution. I am not giving up on America, like @Scott, I am not ceding th e label of “American” to them.
We are witnessing a lot of very bad stuff, such as the rendition of people to CECOT with no process, just “I don’t like your face, I mean tattoo”.
AND, we have seen 3.9 million human beings treated as property in this country – a notion that embraced the idea that torture of said property was an entirely appropriate course of action and a Supreme Court saying that this is the just and natural order of things, and those who don’t assist in this injustice are exposed to the wrath of the law.
Comparisons are always a problem, but I have a hard time with the idea that what we are facing now is worse than that. Things may get rougher, or they may not. The whole thing could run out of steam. We have pulled out of situation as bad, if not worse before, though. And yeah, there are probably more bad times to come.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Both our kids will be among the remainers. They’re in Northern California, which is good. But point taken, I am very aware that I have means to do what many others wish they could. And we will still have to be in the US more than I would like, we’re keeping the Vegas place and one car.
@Scott F.:
Look, I want to believe as well. And as I said the other day, I’ll keep writing – both checks and books and rants here at OTB. But repairing the damage is the work of many years. I’m 70. I’m not spending the rest of my life living in a fascist oligarchy.
David Brooks (!) had an interesting column on growing illiteracy and the stupidity that tends to follow.
Polarization is real, obviously, but so is a society-wide indifference to lies. It’s been going on for a long time, this creeping indifference, even hostility, to truth. Our side is not immune. I am afraid we lack the intellectual candlepower and moral clarity to save ourselves. Mentally healthy people do not join cults of personality. Strong people are not broken by a pandemic and costly eggs. The Morlocks have emerged to take control, and the Eloi are weak.
Is it any surprise that a botox-filled bureaucrat, who shot her own pet, would stand in front of this chamber of horrors and claim the mantle of what is good and right?
These people are less than mediocre in every way but for the evil in their souls. Evil they disguise every day in their phony christianity.
I’m sure that any day Chuck Schumer is going to step up and lead us out of this.
@Flat Earth Luddite: I am of the persuasion that “safer climes” might not exist.
We have considered several golden visa countries over the past year or so, and none of them offer even the level of safety we enjoy today in the US
Things might get worse, but unless I want to go back to work – I really can’t go anywhere.
@Michael Reynolds: per Brooks:
I want to dismiss Brooks as just old man shouting at clouds on this one, but despite the fact that he is clearly an old man shouting at clouds, there has been a coarsening of the culture.
The argument that I think Brooks is attempting to make*, or at least the most sensible interpretation I can make over the vast gaps in his logic, is that without the internet connecting widely dispersed groups of likeminded individuals, Gamergate doesn’t happen. The alt-right doesn’t happen. The manosphere doesn’t happen.
I think we have to look at what things were like before the internet became so dominant though. Rush Limbaugh pushing conspiracy theories on the Clintons. Members of the House of Representatives pushing conspiracy theories about the Clintons. You had network TV running stories with people shooting watermelons to try to show that Vince Foster didn’t kill himself.
Basically, without the internet, Fox News still happens.
Social media companies are often creating harmful products and that’s not helping (recent Facebook former-exec testifying that Facebook learned that if a 13-17 year old girl deleted a selfie, that would be a great time to show her ads for beauty products because she was probably feeling like she was ugly and possibly depressed), but the change started before everyone got connected.
What really catalyzed that change was a bunch of people looking back on the age of yellow journalism and thinking “let’s do that again,” and then weaponizing free speech against democracy. People who thought that they could control the monster they were creating.
——
*: a thing about Brooks is that he writes nearly empty columns, that people then project their own beliefs into. It’s kind of an art form.
As the late Teve once wrote: “shitty people with shitty values.”
@Daryl:
I like to think that any history books that cover this period of American history will say “They needed a leader. They got Chuck Schumer.”
The next day, the press sec. said that Trump is interested “if it’s legal.”
Even if we had a Congress willing to jealously guard its power (we do not) and they passed a law (they will not) prohibiting imprisoning citizens outside of US jurisdiction, and the administration fully committed to accepting the court’s decisions* (they are habitual line steppers at the least), I am pretty sure the only way the constitutionality of the law could be tested in Court is if the administration deports a US citizen. Short of that last scenario, it seems as if no one would have standing to challenge it in Court.
Note that the administration, and Trump himself, have noted that they would only consider it for the worst of the worst and repeat offenders. I guess someone went into the national archives with a sharpie and added those phrases to the Constitution.
*I don’t know of any statistics, but I do know there are prominent members of Fed Soc and the Conservative Legal Movement who believe that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided and that judicial review violates SoP.
@Michael Reynolds:
Amen to that. It’s important to note, though, that in times like these, truth-speakers such as artists & writers are more important than ever.
Please keep writing rants and checks, as will I.
@Gustopher: FWIW, Schumer was right. By falling on the sword to make sure Democrats played no role in a government shutdown, he ensured Trump and Republicans are now getting all the blame for economic backsliding, uncertainty, and chaos.
Schumer is owed an apology from the nattering nabobs who thought they knew better, but of course he’ll never get one. Udall, Hillary, and others never got theirs either.
The road to concentration camps is paved with these denialists. No less than Jim Mattis and John Kelly warned that Trump was a fascist of Hitlerian flavor. But contrarion scolds who imagine themselves above-the-partisan-fray dismissed that as so much hysteria.
No surprise this was the same cohort denying that Putin was about to sack Kyiv when he was literally massing troops at Ukraine’s border.
And now we all personally know how what happened pre-WWII happened.
@DK:
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name…”
John Stuart Mill, 1867.
@Michael Reynolds:
My frequent advice to my younger relatives:
Ignore social media. Read books.
When asked which, I usually default to start with Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. On the basis that it’ll keep them out of mischief for quite a while.
It’s been quite a journey watching America move from being a global champion of human rights in the Cold War to having a regime indistinguishable morally from Vladimir Putin’s.
– Use of the criminal justice system to intimidate critics? Check.
– Exempting the regime’s supporters from criminal investigation, prosecution and imprisonment? Check.
– Using the power of the state to openly extort billions of dollars from private companies as the price of remaining in business? Check.
– Vicious attacks on independent judges and defiance of unfavorable court orders? Check.
– Blatant moves to punish negative media coverage and reward sycophants? Check.
– Arbitrary detention and imprisonment without any right of appeal? Check.
Hitler would be jealous. He had to expel the Communist deputies and cow the rest with his Brownshirt thugs to induce the Reichstag to permit him to rule by decree. Trump hasn’t even needed to call up the Proud Boys to get Congress to do likewise.
@Ken_L:
Also, using state power to coerce political compliance from the academies.
And, especially, given the key role of legal activity in the US political system (the US is a bit of an outlier on this, but its key to US politics, imho) forcing major US law firms to bow the knee.
The subordination of Congress, the academy, and the lawyers, to executive will is perilous in the extreme.
Especially when the executive is a clown show.
The next stop on the MAGA road to catastrophic failure: the Fed.