Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador mega-prison in 2024. He pitched it to Stephen Miller
www.independent.co.uk
Matt Gaetz was given a tour of the facility, which human rights groups have described as a ‘tropical gulag’ rife with abuses

Matt Gaetz was given a tour of the facility, which human rights groups have described as a ‘tropical gulag’ rife with abuses

Matt Gaetz visited the El Salvador mega-prison last summer and pitched the idea of sending migrants there to Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to a report.

Trump’s failed nominee to lead the Justice Department was invited on a diplomatic visit by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in July 2024, TIME reports.

Bukele made Gaetz an offer during a dinner that he would be willing to imprison migrants that Trump wanted removed from the U.S. inside El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, according to the outlet. The next day, Gaetz was given a tour of the facility, which human rights groups have described as a “tropical gulag” rife with abuses.

  • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
    2·
    2 days ago

    The US has a history of using death/suffering as a “deterrent” for illegal border crossings. It doesn’t really work that way, though.

    Excerpts from Immigration and Naturalization Service “Border Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond”:

    The Border Patrol will improve control of the border by implementing a strategy of “prevention through deterrence.” The Border Patrol will achieve the goals of its strategy by bringing a decisive number of enforcement resources to bear in each major entry corridor. The Border Patrol will increase the number of agents on the line and make effective use of technology, raising the risk of apprehension high enough to be an effective deterrent.

    The prediction is that with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement. Mobility of enforcement resources will be essential in tracking illegal traffic to prevent local “hot spots” from becoming long-term problem areas.

    They targetted safer passageways and funneled migrants through the Sonoran Desert, which promptly led to increased migrant deaths but an unchanged quantity of crossing attempts. It’s not like the migrants can afford to turn around and go home.

    It makes sense that the logical next step in the death-making company is to buy a death machine since it’s “cheaper” than processing inviduals and sending them home to their deaths.