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El Salvador was once rampant with violent criminal gangs, with a murder rate greater than 1 in 1000. Bukele took power on the promise of restoring peace in El Salvador. He was elected, and started rounding up gang members and imprisoning them without trial and based on their tattoos and social circles. The cops didn't care if the prisoner had comitted or even accused of a crime, if they had an MS-13 tattoo, right to jail.

San Salvador made a deal with the US to build a megaprison called CECOT. US provided some funding and contractors, El Salvador funded the rest under a government legislation that was forced througn parliament at gunpoint when Bukele marched special forces into Parliament twice to get the bill passed.

CECOT was set up as a maximum security prison, with security outsorced to foreign guards. It has four cell blocks, eith 16 cells each, and each cell holds up to 250 prisoners.

All known gang members were moved there. Guards have rifles with live rounds and will kill on sight any prisoner trying to escape, resist guards, or damage prison property. The prison regimen is 23.5hrs in cell, 0.5hrs outside of the cell for exercise or prayer. Prisoners have no books, bedsheets, mattresses, or any type of item or luxury except pants, socks, underwear, and a shirt.

Prisoners have no trial date, parole period, or chance of release. There is a 'hole' for prisoners who cause trouble, which is a bare concrete room, a hole in one corner, and a 100mm hole that lets in light in the daytime, otherwise its pitch black. Prisoners can be sent to the hole for up to 30 days.

The prison funding deal was made with the US in exchange for the US deporting, no questions asked, any MS-13 gang member or other salvadoran illegal immigrant and having them sent straigt to CECOT so there is no possibility that they will return to the US.

Bukele is resisting the natural impetus to check this US citizens status and, if found to be innocent, release him back to the US because this is in direct contradiction to the deal made with the US, that prisoners in CECOT never get to come back to the US. I'ts also in contravention of the CECOT policy to determine if the man is innocent or guilty, because most of the prisoners in CECOT didn't, and won't get a trial. Imprisoning innnocent people by their association with violent criminals, if even by familial connection or happnestance, is part of the radically anti-crime ethos of CECOT - Nobody gets due process because it would take too long, gum up the judicial system, and result in MS13 running rampant in El Salvador while the LEO tries to play whackamole.

CECOT is an extreme response to an existential problem that El Salvador faced, and it achieved amazing results in terms of crime and violence reduction and a return to social stability and functional society.

CECOT is a real-world trolley problem. How many innocent people are you willing to lock up amongst the gang members to prevent the murder of innocents out in the real world, including the civilian losses due to government Vs gang warfare if El Salvador falls entirely into an ungovernable lawless warlord-run country like Somalia?

Trump and Bukele are ideologically alike. Bukele wants more funding for his prison, which the US is providing. The prison is basically a black-site with journalists given very limited and controlled access. For all I know, it could be a deathcamp; they do use forced labor, so it is at least a slave camp. Also, they never release anyone from there, which further raises the suspicion of it being a death camp.

Because Trump is having the US pay them a lot of money to take these prisoners.