For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor.Ecclesiastes 4 : 14
David Culver, Abel Alvarado, Evelio Contreras and Rachel Clarke, CNN
Wed, April 9, 2025 at 5:06 AM GMT+34 min read
Men deported by the United States to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison are living in “the same” conditions as convicted gangsters, prison director Belarmino García said on Tuesday, during an exclusive tour for CNN, the first US news organization to visit the facility since the latest deportation flight.
The gospel would have brought to France the solution of those political and social problems that baffled the skill of her clergy, her king, and her legislators, and finally plunged the nation into anarchy and ruin. But under the domination of Rome the people had lost the Saviour’s blessed lessons of self-sacrifice and unselfish love. They had been led away from the practice of self-denial for the good of others. The rich had found no rebuke for their oppression of the poor, the poor no help for their servitude and degradation. The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more apparent and oppressive. For centuries the greed and profligacy of the noble resulted in grinding extortion toward the peasant. The rich wronged the poor, and the poor hated the rich.
In many provinces the estates were held by the nobles, and the laboring classes were only tenants; they were at the mercy of their landlords and were forced to submit to their exorbitant demands. The burden of supporting both the church and the state fell upon the middle and lower classes, who were heavily taxed by the civil authorities and by the clergy. ” GC 279.3 – GC 279.4
García would not discuss any specifics around the deportees beyond confirming they are in his facility. But when pressed, he said “there are no privileges.”
That would mean the deportees’ heads have been shaved and they are kept in communal cells holding up to 100 men each for 23½ hours a day. Two sources told CNN the situation is less regimented for the deportees, but the facilities are the same. The cells have no privacy, and no furniture beyond rows of stacked metal bunks with no mattresses or pillows.
“The pleasure of the nobles was considered the supreme law; the farmers and the peasants might starve, for aught their oppressors cared…. The people were compelled at every turn to consult the exclusive interest of the landlord. The lives of the agricultural laborers were lives of incessant work and unrelieved misery; their complaints, if they ever dared to complain, were treated with insolent contempt. The courts of justice would always listen to a noble as against a peasant; bribes were notoriously accepted by the judges; and the merest caprice of the aristocracy had the force of law, by virtue of this system of universal corruption. Of the taxes wrung from the commonalty, by the secular magnates on the one hand, and the clergy on the other, not half ever found its way into the royal or episcopal treasury; the rest was squandered in profligate self-indulgence. And the men who thus impoverished their fellow subjects were themselves exempt from taxation, and entitled by law or custom to all the appointments of the state. The privileged classes numbered a hundred and fifty thousand, and for their gratification millions were condemned to hopeless and degrading lives.” (See Appendix.) GC 279.4
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Some 278 men have been deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador, accused of being members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang or Salvadorans who are said to be part of MS-13.
But they also include Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker and father-of-three from Maryland, who was mistakenly removed from the US through an “administrative error.”
His case is now with the US Supreme Court, which extended the deadline of a lower court judge requiring the administration to get him back by midnight on Monday.
CNN was not permitted inside Sector 8 of Cecot, officially known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, where the deportees are being held.
Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.Psalm 142 : 7
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García said he was not familiar with the specifics of any individual deportee and could not comment further.`
It had been Rome’s policy, under a profession of reverence for the Bible, to keep it locked up in an unknown tongue and hidden away from the people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed in sackcloth.” But another power—the beast from the bottomless pit—was to arise to make open, avowed war upon the word of God.
“The great city” in whose streets the witnesses are slain, and where their dead bodies lie, is “spiritually” Egypt. Of all nations presented in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the living God and resisted His commands. No monarch ever ventured upon more open and highhanded rebellion against the authority of Heaven than did the king of Egypt. When the message was brought him by Moses, in the name of the Lord, Pharaoh proudly answered: “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” Exodus 5:2, A.R.V. This is atheism, and the nation represented by Egypt would give voice to a similar denial of the claims of the living God and would manifest a like spirit of unbelief and defiance. “The great city” is also compared, “spiritually,” to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom in breaking the law of God was especially manifested in licentiousness. And this sin was also to be a pre-eminent characteristic of the nation that should fulfill the specifications of this scripture.
According to the words of the prophet, then, a little before the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character would rise to make war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God’s two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom. GC 269.1 – GC 269.3
But when CNN asked, he was happy to show how Salvadoran inmates were able to participate should they have their own court hearings.
They are removed from their communal cell by armed personnel and taken to a room with video conference facilities. Monitors showed court proceedings in progress, apparently with lawyers and judges present.
Cecot houses both convicted criminals and those still going through El Salvador’s court system. With many constitutional rights suspended under El Salvador’s years-long state of emergency, some people have been detained by mistake, President Nayib Bukele has admitted; several thousand of them have already been released.
Where the lights are always on
Each of the eight sectors is fully self-contained with these conference rooms as well as a medical clinic, with the intention that inmates never step outside their warehouse-like building.
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They are watched through the bars constantly and the lights are always on, García said. There are even guards on catwalks above the cells.
Looking down through the metal-grille ceiling into a cell, the deliberate harshness of the life for the Salvadoran inmates — whether convicted or awaiting trial — is clear. They are allowed no personal possessions; they must use an open toilet and there’s a cement basin for washing and large jug for drinking water.
Still, there are checks for contraband when the inmates are “extricated” from the cells. The men have their hands cuffed behind them and then run to sit in a designated spot, stretching their legs around those of the man in front in what becomes a human herringbone pattern.
When Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited Cecot last month, she recorded a video message to say to undocumented immigrants in the US: “This is one of the consequences you could face.”
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“First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed, and you will be prosecuted,” she said. “But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”
CNN visited Cecot late last year, the first major US news organization to be allowed inside the isolated facility that was built away from any town.
It is busier inside now, with more men in each cell.
Last year, García would say only between 10,000 and 20,000 inmates were being held. Now he says it’s getting closer to its 40,000 maximum population, but once again declined to give a specific number, citing security precautions. The growth would include the deportees from the US, but be mostly Salvadorans rounded up under the emergency situation introduced by Bukele.
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A thousand or more armed guards rotate duties at the prison, built in just seven months and opened in January 2023. The prison is also ringed by multiple electric fences and 19 watchtowers.
For critics, Cecot is a sign of how quickly rights can disappear. But for many in El Salvador it is proof of effective control and a return to security in what was once the “murder capital of the world.”
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