Will you sign the petition to demand Congress STOP funding the Salvadoran megaprison amid reports of abuse and torture?
Dear MoveOn member,
The Trump administration disappeared Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of two, to a megaprison in El Salvador due to an "administrative error."1 And not only is President Donald Trump doing nothing to secure his return—he's already planning on sending more people, including U.S. citizens, to the maximum security prison, using taxpayer dollars.2
Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), where Kilmar was detained, has been accused of gross human rights violations.3 And, despite the reports of abuse, torture, and neglect, the Trump administration has sent hundreds of people there to be detained indefinitely—entering into a $6 million deal this year alone.4
But this is just the beginning. Trump has plans to expand the deal, with intentions of sending "homegrowns"—meaning U.S. citizens—to CECOT.5
We should all be terrified. Trump is sending people in mass groups to overcrowded, maximum-security facilities with little to no oversight, accountability, or due process. We have to mobilize against it NOW.
Add your name to the petition to demand Congress immediately cease funding for CECOT and investigate any claims of abuse, torture, and neglect!
Congress must act. The Leahy Law prohibits funding foreign security forces involved in gross human rights violations. Yet Trump's deal with CECOT appears to violate this law, and still, Republicans in Congress remain silent.6
Human Rights Watch has detailed the disturbing conditions of El Salvador's prisons.7 Just last year, they released a report about the thousands of children who have been detained—documenting 66 cases where children were tortured, neglected, and denied food and medical care.8
There is little information about what goes on at CECOT. But what we do know is disturbing and heartbreaking. Congress has the responsibility to intervene NOW and cut off funding for CECOT. Will you sign the petition?
There's a reason CECOT is called a "black hole." Once people are sent there, they vanish, cut off from their families, stripped of legal representation, and taken into a system with no transparency and no path out. It’s devastating that hundreds of people, without ever being charged for a single crime, are being sent there by this administration.9
Hundreds of people, many never charged with a crime, have already disappeared into CECOT under Trump's orders. A "60 Minutes" investigation exposed detainees such as a makeup artist, a soccer player, and a food delivery driver, locked inside a prison so brutal that El Salvador's own justice minister said the only way out is in a coffin.10
This is right out of the authoritarian playbook. Trump is using fearmongering and hate to justify his lawlessness and human rights abuses, turning a foreign prison into a tool of political terror, hoping that people will turn away. But we refuse to be silent.
Click here to demand Congress STOP funding CECOT immediately and STOP Trump's deportation deal with El Salvador now.Thanks for all you do.
–Aliya, Mia, Melissa, Allison, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Who is the man in middle of Maryland deportation case?" BBC, April 18, 2025
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20z63gr8mzo
2. "Trump says he would 'love to' send American 'homegrown criminals' to foreign prisons," CBS News, April 15, 2025
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-homegrown-criminals-foreign-prisons-cecot/
3. "Experts: $6 million payment to Salvadoran prison likely violates US human rights law," The Baltimore Sun, April 18, 2025
https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/04/15/experts-6-million-payment-to-salvadoran-prison-likely-violates-u-s-human-rights-law/
4. "What we know about the El Salvador 'mega prison' where Trump is sending alleged Venezuelan gang members," CNN, March 17, 2025
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/17/americas/el-salvador-prison-trump-deportations-gangs-intl-latam/index.html
5. "Trump says he would 'love to' send American 'homegrown criminals' to foreign prisons," CBS News, April 15, 2025
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-homegrown-criminals-foreign-prisons-cecot/
6. "U.S. human rights law likely violated in $6M payment for El Salvador prison, experts say," News from the States, April 14, 2025
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/us-human-rights-law-likely-violated-6m-payment-el-salvador-prison-experts-say
7. "Human Rights Watch declaration on prison conditions in El Salvador for the J.G.G. v. Trump case," Human Rights Watch, March 20, 2025
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/20/human-rights-watch-declaration-prison-conditions-el-salvador-jgg-v-trump-case
8. Ibid.
9. "The conditions inside the infamous El Salvador prison where deported migrants are held," PBS News, April 8, 2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-conditions-inside-the-infamous-el-salvador-prison-where-deported-migrants-are-held
10. "U.S. sent 238 migrants to Salvadoran mega-prison; documents indicate most have no apparent criminal records," CBS News, April 6, 2025
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-records-show-about-migrants-sent-to-salvadoran-prison-60-minutes-transcript
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