Kilmar Abrego Garcia became the face of the Trump administration’s cruelty and incompetence earlier this year. The Maryland father was in the country legally, had no criminal record, and was snatched from his home by mistake. He was promptly flown out of the country and tossed into El Salvador’s CECOT prison, with authorities insisting they had no way to retrieve him, not that they even wanted to.
A torrent of lies followed, with the embarrassed White House doing their best to paint Garcia as the most degenerate, violent, and evil gang member the nation had ever seen. The low point was Trump himself holding up an obviously edited image of Garcia’s hand and insisting that he had MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles.
Welcome to hell
NEW: Kilmar Abrego Garcia offered his first account of the “severe beatings” and other abuses he says he suffered while jailed in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 3, 2025
He says in a court filing that he lost 31 lbs in two weeks.
w/ @joshgerstein https://t.co/EyjUBrwiSP pic.twitter.com/CZelJ87hDv
Garcia was finally flown back to the United States in early June and imprisoned as he faces rapidly concocted charges of human smuggling, as the vengeful Trump team desperately tries to get rid of him as soon as possible. Whatever happens to Garcia (and we doubt even in a best-case scenario it’s anything good), he has at least given us a picture of what’s happening inside the mysterious CECOT facility.
He recounted his experiences in a legal filing in Maryland federal court, describing the treatment of prisoners at CECOT as “torture”. On arrival, he was told by an official, “Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn’t leave”, before being stripped, shaved, and beaten to a pulp by guards with batons.
He was then taken to a crowded windowless cell containing up to 160 inmates in which the lights are kept on 24 hours a day nobody is allowed outdoors. Casual torture sounds rampant, with guards forcing inmates to kneel in a still position for nine hours, with anyone who collapsed being beaten. As per Garcia, he was forced to soil himself during this process.
The filing goes on to summarize a report from Christosal, a human rights organization monitoring CECOT. They report hundreds of deaths taking place across El Salvador’s prison system, “especially CECOT”, including “torture, beatings, mechanical asphyxiation (strangulation), and lack of medical attention”. Autopsies on deceased inmates revealed “lacerations, hematomas, sharp object wounds, and signs of choking or strangulation”.
It’s a miracle that Garcia got out of there at all, though he still faces the very real prospect of being sent back. Cards on the table time, a torture prison that no inmate is ever intended to leave is, by definition, a death camp. Sure, they might not be industrial execution chambers, but if every inmate is intended to die within its walls, what else can we call it?
