Trump paid El Salvador $5M to jail deportees - with conditions on abortion and DEI but not preventing torture

[Eugene]

Source: The Independent

Trump paid El Salvador $5M to jail deportees – with conditions on abortion and DEI but not preventing torture

Secret memos made public this week show Trump administration’s arrangement with Nayib Bukele to jail Venezuelans

Alex Woodward
in New York
Wednesday 10 September 2025 20:53 BST

A secret memo between the United States and El Salvador reveals the Trump administration’s $5 million deal for Nayib Bukele’s government to jail dozens of Venezuelan immigrants deported from the country earlier this year.

According to a term sheet made public in court filings this week, the Trump administration agreed to pay the Salvadoran government $4.67 million to detain deportees at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a brutal prison that human rights groups have condemned as a “tropical gulag.”

Under terms of the deal, El Salvador was prohibited from using the money to support drug traffickers and “mass-migration caravans” to the U.S.-Mexico border — as well as abortion care and support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

But the deal does not explicitly prohibit immigrants from being tortured, experiencing abuse or being held indefinitely inside one of the western hemisphere’s most notorious jails, where more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants deported by the Trump administration spent more than four months before they were sent back to their home country.

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Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-paid-el-salvador-cecot-nayib-bukele-b2824075.html

Alternate link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-paid-el-salvador-5m-195344464.html