El Salvador's President says notorious Megaprison Will Double In Size To Hold Trump's 'homegrown' Deportees
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele plans to double the size of the notorious megaprison where the country is holding migrants that President
Donald Trump deported.
The plan would make room for more prisoners and comes after Trump has openly mused about sending Americans convicted of violent crimes to the South American country.
Bukele would expand the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), which is already the largest prison in the world, he told Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when she visited last month,
the Wall Street Journal reported.
'We have no plans to bring them back, this is a long-term solution,' she told the news outlet. 'He has plans to double the size. He has 80-plus acres there that he's going to continue to build on.'
Doubling the prison's capacity would create space for a total of 80,000 inmates.
The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) was built in late 2022 amid a gang crackdown in El Salvador.
As of June 11, 2024, CECOT had a population of 14,532 inmates. It can hold 40,000.
It sits on 57 acres and Bukele's government controls the 350 acres around the compound. It's surrounded by 19 guard towers, 24-inch-thick walls that are topped with barbed wire, and two sets of electrified fences.
The prison is staffed by 600 soldiers and 250 police officers.
Bukele has become a close Trump ally and visited the president in the Oval Office earlier this week.
'You gotta build about five more places,' Trump told him during their sit down.
Trump also said he's open to sending more criminals there, including ones that are American citizens.
'We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters,' Trump said. 'I'd like to include them.'
'If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem, no,' he said, adding: 'I'm talking about really bad people.'
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele plans to double the size of the notorious megaprison where the country is holding migrants that President Donald Trump deported.
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