The U.S. Government is now Participating in Human Trafficking
With $6 million, the Trump administration disappeared hundreds of people into a foreign prison where they are tortured into forcefully working without pay.
By invoking the “state secrets privilege”, a move that allows the U.S. government to withhold sensitive information from becoming public for national security interests, Donald Trump’s administration has deported 238 Venezuelan immigrants to the infamous El Salvadoran mega-prison.
With no due process, they are rounding up people, most seemingly random (or mistakenly profiled due to unrelated tattoos and other physical markers), and sending them to this prison, where they will end up working until the day they die.
Once you are sent to that prison, there’s no getting out. Which means the US government is now trafficking migrants into a global market so they can do forced unpaid labor.
Trump and El Salvador
The Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele struck a $6 million deal for the US government to trade 238 people to be held for a year in the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). The prison sentences are widely reported to be indefinite with no chance of release.
Legal intervention has been ongoing since this deal was struck, but Trump’s administration is tripling down. On March 26, DOJ lawyers sought a federal appeals court ruling that would let them resume deportations to El Salvador.
In another overnight sting last week, the US deported 17 more people to El Salvador, using a different legal route to get around Judge Boasberg’s hold.
They’ve made mistakes…
The Trump administration recently admitted that it accidentally illegally deported a Maryland father who an immigration judge had granted protected status. Even with that, the Trump administration said it can’t bring him home because he is now in foreign custody. This means they prioritize their relationship with El Salvador over their humanity and guidance with the American legal system. Maryland courts couldn’t do anything because El Salvador is not in their jurisdiction.
The only person who can undue this is Trump, who doesn’t care.
CECOT conditions
They reportedly spend 23.5 hours a day in overcrowded cells that are more reminiscent of cages that hold around 80-100 people, where they sleep on metal bunks with no mattresses. The goal is to enlist them in El Salvador’s famous “Zero Idleness” program, where they will force more than 40,000 incarcerated people to build infrastructure, manufacture goods, and even work in agriculture, where they harvest products.
This is slavery.
The Trump administration has spent millions of your taxpayer dollars to disappear people, the majority of whom have no criminal record and no apparent gang affiliation whatsoever, to CECOT, where they will be forced to work for free to feed the ego of a dictator.
Think about it: it costs about $60,000 to incarcerate a single person in the US, but in CECOT it’s about $25,000 per person. The federal government is slated to save over $8 million through this deal while isolating people from legal protection.
As the Trump Administration’s Kristi Noem put it when she visited CECOT:
This facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.
For a country that holds more than 4,000 companies that rely on domestic prison slave labor to sell their product at a cheaper rate, this isn’t very surprising.
What is Trump’s goal, ultimately? Mass deportations will eventually put a massive dent in the economy, leaving many labor-intensive and low-paying jobs vacant. Construction, agriculture, and hospitality sectors will suffer tremendously, and we will pay the price for it through cost inflation.
Incarcerated people fight the wildfires at a criminally offensive pay rate; they manufactured PPE and dug mass graves during the COVID-19 pandemic. What is Donald Trump’s plan for all of this?
Wrapping it up
Trump administration's use of the "state secrets privilege" to justify the deportation of 238 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador's notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) highlights the disturbing trend in U.S. immigration and foreign policy.
The human rights violations occurring in CECOT, where individuals are subjected to forced labor in horrific conditions without due process. By trading these individuals for economic gains and exploiting them as a source of cheap labor, the U.S. government is complicit in perpetuating modern-day slavery, all while avoiding accountability for its actions.
The long-term consequences of mass deportations, including labor shortages in key sectors of the economy and the erosion of human rights protections, will undoubtedly come at a considerable price.
The deal with El Salvador reflects a broader disregard for justice, human dignity, and the rule of law. It will likely remain a dark chapter in the history of U.S. immigration policy. Our grandchildren will learn about it in history class, and wonder how we let it happen.
The real question is how long the country will stand by as these injustices unfold.
Very informative to read, it makes me sad and angry that this administration continues to target innocent people who want to come here to the U.S. for a better life. It’s also bad for the economy, and refutes Trump's lie that he’s only targeting "criminal gang members." We must be welcoming to everyone who wants to come here
Thank you for bringing a light to these stories; even though they may wear down your willpower.