Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where she was shown suspected members of Venezuela’s dangerous Tren de Aragua gang who were deported from the United States.
Noem posted a video from her tour on X on Wednesday, adding a warning to criminal illegal immigrants still residing in the U.S.
“I toured the CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center,” Noem wrote on X. “President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW. If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison.”
In the video, Noem tells immigrants not to come to the U.S. illegally and that the prison is “one of the tools in our toolkit.”
I toured the CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW.
If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison. pic.twitter.com/OItDqNsFxM
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 26, 2025
“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.”
Noem appears in the video standing in front of a massive prison cell filled to the brim with tattooed men in white prison pants with their heads shaved. Men can be seen standing behind her, as well as sitting on three levels of shelves.
CECOT is infamous for housing members of dangerous Central and South American gang members – and for its dehumanizing conditions, such as brutality and overcrowding, the New York Post reported. Inmates are provided only minimal meals of beans and pasta, with rival gangs fighting regularly over the scarce resource. Inmates are also crammed into overcrowded cells nearly 24 hours a day.
The conditions are deliberate in an attempt to deter would-be gangsters.
Noem toured the prison with Héctor Gustavo Villatoro, El Salvador’s Minister of Justice, before she met with President Nayib Bukele to negotiate to send more alleged gang members from the United States.
The CECOT, which opened in 2023, currently holds 15,000 inmates but can hold up to 40,000, with as many as 65 to 70 in each cell, Fox News reported. Prisoners are not allowed outside, and they cannot have visitors. The prison has no educational programs.
In February, Bukele offered to house criminal illegal immigrants for a “relatively low” fee after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the country, The Daily Wire reported at the time.
“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele said at the time.
“We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee,” he continued, adding that the fee “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
