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00:00What I was saying is, this is a prison that was designed to, as the name suggests, to
00:06contain terrorism.
00:07The government of El Salvador says that this is the place where they have the worst of
00:11the worst of the gangs that used to control, terrorize the population for many years.
00:18And that the only way that they were able to not only crack down on the crimes, taking
00:22El Salvador from being the unsafest place in the world to the safest in this hemisphere,
00:28was by cutting out any information, any communication coming in or out of that prison.
00:33What this means is they block cell phone signal.
00:36These prisoners don't even go out to a yard.
00:39It's a place that has multiple layers of security in terms of gates, as you can see in these
00:44images, where when you walk into these modules that you can see on those images, kind of
00:50looking like airplane hangers, the inmates are in there itself that have about 80 to
00:59100 of them.
01:01And that is where they will spend their lives.
01:04There are many, among the 20,000 or so in a prison that has a capacity of 40,000, that
01:10are not convicted of crimes yet.
01:12But El Salvador has lifted a number of rights under a state of exception, basically declared
01:19war on the gangs that President Uribe did almost years ago.
01:24And what that means is you don't get proper due process.
01:28People who are suspected, sometimes based on something as simple as an anonymous tip,
01:36are thrown into these prisons.
01:38They can wait their years before they have the possibility of representation, of showing
01:45up in court.
01:46They don't get to talk to attorneys, especially outside of the hearings that happen within
01:51a room where they have access to Zoom, but attorneys don't show up.
01:56Family cannot go visit, and they do not connect with the outside world.
02:00So in this case, where these Venezuelans, who the U.S. government is alleging are gang
02:07members, and in one case of one prisoner whose family I talked to, or deportee whose family
02:13I talked to, there's absolutely no record of him having committed any crimes.
02:19The family had no idea he was there until CBS News reported yesterday a list detailing
02:25the or showing the names of those who are there, but have very little hope that they
02:30could be brought back.
02:32These are not people who were just deported.
02:34These are people who were taken to that place where you have any sense of identity stripped
02:41out of you and where the director of the prison and several ministers I interviewed
02:46tell me they're going to spend their lives there and that they are confident that anybody
02:51who's there is a gang member.
02:53And even though some, a few thousand people have been able to get out of not that, but
02:58other prisons and shown they're innocent, it's a system that imprisons you first, cuts
03:05you out from the world.
03:06And multiple studies from human rights advocates and organizations there have shown that there
03:12are systemic issues with torture and conditions in these prisons where it's very hard to prove
03:20that you're innocent.
03:21And I've seen from your piece, this is a place where the lights never go off, that you've
03:26got what every cell which is full, a row of metal bunk beds.
03:29You have no sheets, no bedding, two sinks, two toilets, no windows, nothing else allowed.
03:34And you've said, as you've seen that it's going to take you time still to process what
03:39you've witnessed.
03:40Honestly, I walked out of there and the stripping of somebody's humanity, despite, look, these
03:48people, many of them have committed horrific crimes, but it's very hard to be there in
03:53person staring at human beings who are looking out at you.
03:57And it feels like a zoo, like they don't communicate, they don't express themselves, they don't
04:02move.
04:04They're just staring.
04:05And I asked one of the prison guards, I'm very surprised, you know, in any other prison
04:11they would be hissing or kissing or making any kind of gestures.
04:14And they told me if they do that, they will go into solitary for 15 days, which is the
04:19highest amount of days that they're allowed legally to put somebody in solitary.
04:24And I asked, what's the average for something as simple as making a facial gesture at me
04:28right now?
04:29And they said, no, no, everybody goes in there for 15 days.
04:33That's just what we do.
04:34And that solitary confinement, I was inside that cell, it is absolutely pitch black.
04:40There's only a tiny hole in the top where some daylight comes through, slither a little
04:45bit of light, a speck of light.
04:48And it's a place where you have absolutely no sound.
04:51It's a place that seems to be designed to absolutely make you crazy.
04:55And what's interesting about this prison is the fact that they acknowledge that a lot
04:59of people there are not convicted of crimes, but it almost doesn't matter.
05:05They're convinced that whoever goes there is going to be there for life.
05:08They're convinced that it's more important to achieve that safety in the country than
05:13this whole thing about human rights, as they say.
05:16And you've got prisoners there outside of solitary confinement, just listening to your
05:19piece, what, 23 and a half hours inside the other 30 minutes spent in a central corridor
05:24for exercise ad infinitum.
05:26And then you have, let's take a look.
05:28In fact, this is a conversation that you had with one of those inside.
05:32How do you feel right now?
05:37Got to recognize that what happened to us is like that Titanic, that we were big and
05:41strong gang, but we got hit with the iceberg.
05:46Are you going to be here the rest of your life?
05:47Yeah, the rest of my life.
05:49We murdered a lot of people and this is the consequence of what we did one day.
05:53How do you stay sane?
05:55How do you keep your head above water?
05:57I try to act strong in the day and cry in the night time.
06:02You cry at night?
06:03Yeah, because we know that we're not going to get out of here.
06:07So President Bukele came in in 2019 and started enacting this 2021 and the people in there
06:13saying that, you know, let's make history and it's about taking people off the streets
06:16and the question about whether the ends actually is worth the means to it.
06:22And I think I'm right in saying he's got a 90 percent approval record.
06:26So this is someone who's become the populist poster boy for law and order that's attracted
06:31Donald Trump.
06:32Absolutely.
06:33And look, I have been sharing all of this content for a month and almost 90 percent
06:38of the comments are people celebrating Bukele.
06:40Understandably, I interviewed people in El Salvador who said we were kidnapped.
06:45And I've interviewed many migrants who used to come from El Salvador to the United States
06:50at the border who were fleeing persecution, mutilations, kidnappings, extortion.
06:56Anybody who had a business would be extorted.
06:58I mean, this place is now a place where you used to see heads in the middle of a park
07:02and now you can walk around and take your family there.
07:05So it is a very effective system that has overwhelming support.
07:09In the case of Bukele, this is a country where there was all of that consensus.
07:13These gangs really did terrorize the population.
07:17In the case of the U.S., there has been this narrative about the dangerous Tren de Aragua,
07:22which is an organized crime group, which does terrorize people, who does smuggle people.
07:27But when I have interviewed officials from the police in New York, for instance, who
07:33talk about Tren de Aragua and I ask about what are these horrific crimes that they're
07:37committing in the U.S., are they terrorizing the U.S. population?
07:41And now thinking back, are they terrorizing the population to the point of ending up in
07:45those cells with those terrorists from those El Salvador gangs?
07:50They've shown me very little evidence that this, and I'm not saying, you know, you have
07:55to terrorize the whole country to face that kind of fate.
07:58But in dozens of the cases where we are at CBS News talking to attorneys and reading
08:04their records or hearing from attorneys and seeing their filings, where they're saying
08:09these people don't have any evidence of crimes, that's how they do it in El Salvador.
08:14And one thing is to deport people following a due process with a court order that denies
08:19asylum. Another thing is, A, not allowing that to happen and invoking this law that
08:26gives full power to just deport people.
08:29And a far worse thing is to deport people without enough evidence of crimes, just saying
08:34that they have tattoos, which, by the way, Tren de Aragua is unlike the MS-13 where they're
08:39not pointing at tattoos that say Tren de Aragua, they're pointing at random tattoos like a
08:43nautical star or a rose and then sending them there.
08:46Which takes us to a point, actually, like you say, with the 18th Street as well, you
08:50can see the 1-8 on the back.
08:53I think human rights organizations have said something like 10 to 15 percent of those
08:56inside are likely to be innocent.
08:58And you met, you found a family who say that their loved one who'd moved from Venezuela,
09:04I think he was a barber, he had a tattoo.
09:06And let's have a listen to the conversation that you had.
09:09This is the wife of Franco Caraballo.
09:13Why did he think that they were going to deport him for the tattoos?
09:17Because of a clock.
09:21A clock that marks the time when your daughter was born.
09:25His wife, Johany, says she last spoke to her husband the day before he was deported.
09:31What worries you about him being in this prison?
09:35That he's innocent.
09:38You think he's being mistreated in there.
09:40What do you think is in it, Lilia, for President Bukele?
09:43Is it this sign that he is the go-to, he is the solution for security and he's got the
09:48ultimate accolade, which is President Trump?
09:52Absolutely. I interviewed the minister of security and I interviewed the minister of
09:57defence in El Salvador and I asked them how sustainable is this model?
10:02Look, it's not very expensive compared to how expensive it is to detain people in the
10:07US. All that President Trump has given so far or the Trump administration has given
10:11so far to the Bukele administration to take these deportees is something like six million
10:15dollars, which Bukele himself has said it's a very small fee.
10:19But he's offering two things.
10:21He's offering a a method with which people would be completely frightened to try to go
10:28to the US. And that's what the US wants or several things.
10:31He's also offered a cheaper way to deal with these gangs and to promote his brand.
10:39And I think the main goal of the Trump administration at this point was to reduce
10:45migration to the US. And it has done that not only by taking away many of the ways that
10:50people used to ask for asylum or parole or visas, but by scaring people in this way.
10:58I think Bukele knows exactly what he has done in terms of the marketing or the promotion
11:03of his brand as this tough on crime person. So it helps him in that way.
11:07And it also helps the US deal with the issue of immigration, which most experts say
11:14and most polls show, actually, that is what got President Trump elected.
11:19Lilia, brilliant to talk to you. Really great to have your insight.
11:23Lilia, brilliant to talk to you. Really great to have your insight.
11:26A rare insight in terms of what's going on. A very important context.
11:30Lilia Luciano, CBS correspondent and anchor and also founder of the Elflo podcast.
11:34Thank you for your time this evening.