On November 12, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal (a human rights organization for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) released a damning report on the inhumane and illegal treatment of 252 Venezuelans detained for four months in CECOT (Center for the Confinement of Terrorism), El Salvador’s maximum security torture prison. The 236-acre facility is staffed by 1,000 prison guards, 250 riot police and guarded by 600 members of the armed forces.

“You have arrived in hell. Here you will spend the rest of your lives.” With this declaration, the director of El Salvador’s CECOT greeted the hundreds of men dragged into the country’s maximum security torture camp.

The report documents an extensive, coordinated and deliberate series of incidents of physical, psychological, sexual abuses, deprivation and torture carried out with the express intent to subjugate and humiliate detainees.

On March 14, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, declaring the small and local Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua a national security threat. The 1798 Alien Enemies Act grants the president unchecked powers to detain or deport nationals of enemy states without due process.

Ignoring a judge’s order, the following day, March 15, US authorities illegally removed 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, with most taken directly to CECOT prison. The White House never provided a full accounting of who exactly was sent to the prison camp but later claimed 101 were deported under regular immigration procedures, while 137 were removed under the Alien Enemies Act, accused of Tren de Aragua membership. Additional smaller groups were sent on March 30 and April 12.

Among those detained was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was returned to the US on June 6 after months of torture and growing public outcry in the United States.

The report confirms detainees are kept in conditions that are intentionally inhumane. The report states that “The prison has no yards, recreational areas, or conjugal spaces. Each cell has only two non-private toilets and two water basins. There are no sinks, showers, natural light, fans, or ventilation systems. The aluminum bunks inside the cells lack mattresses and sheets and are designed to hold two prisoners per bed. Guards surveil prisoners constantly and the lights are always on.”

Food is of limited and poor quality, served in small plastic containers and cups that are passed through the cell bars. The three “meals” are identical, and detainees are forced to eat with only their hands. Every five days, each person has his head shaven.

The abuses begin the moment they are detained, continued as they are transported and escalated after they arrive. The beatings continue daily during cell searches, when detainees allegedly violate prison rules (such as showering at the wrong time or speaking too loudly) and even when they request medical attention.

The most severe beatings occur in a punishment area called “the Island,” consisting of six small solitary confinement cells. Detainees are taken there under various pretexts and beaten with batons, fists and kicks before being left locked inside for hours or days without adequate food, water or light.

A single window in the ceiling at the end of the module serves as the only source of light and ventilation. Each “punishment cell” measures 2.5 meters by 4 meters (8.2 feet by 13 feet) and consists of a cement slab, a water tub with a bucket, basic drainage and a toilet. A room that serves as an infirmary is situated directly across from the torture cells.

Recounting his experiences in this “island,” one detainee stated: “They kept hitting me, in the stomach, and when I tried to breathe, I started to choke on the blood. My cellmates shouted for help, saying they were killing us, but the officers said they just wanted to make us suffer.”

Another detainee described being sexually assaulted by four guards while in the confinement cell, and the report documents pervasive instances of sexual abuse which go under-reported due to stigma and the resulting trauma.

According to a former detainee, the prison guards are heavily armed and armoured, are supported by riot police and have military forces posted around the entrance and perimeter. The guards in the prison concealed their identities, wearing identical gray shirts and black pants, hoods and no identification. They refer to each other only with intimidating nicknames.

“Among the guards, there was one called ‘Satan,’ who was the most abusive. There was another known as ‘the Tiger,’ who was the boss of them all. And another, called ‘Vegeta,’ was the only guard who used a phone; he was the one who took photos and videos of us,” stated Julián G. to Human Rights Watch.

Notably the report states, “Officers also appear to have acted on the belief that their superiors either supported or tolerated their abusive acts.”

All of these acts are flagrant, deliberate violations of due process, human rights and international law.

Compounding the torture, those held were cut off completely from contact with their loved ones, with both the US and Salvadoran governments repeatedly denying requests for information on their whereabouts.

Despite prior reports of abuse and torture in CECOT, the United States nonetheless sends the detainees to the facility—a violation of the principle of non-refoulement in the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). Non-refoulement is an international legal principle that prohibits a country from returning refugees or other individuals to a place where their life or freedom would be threatened, or where they would face torture, cruel or degrading treatment.

Of the 252 Venezuelans who were subjected to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, ICE data shows that of those sent to CECOT, 49 percent had no criminal record at all. Only 3.2 percent had violent or potentially violent charges. This flies in the face of the deluge of propaganda from the US government that those detained were gang members or terrorists.

Following massive public outcry, on July 18, the detainees were released in an exchange with Venezuela, where they continue to face the very same danger and uncertainty they sought to flee from, including the threats of war.

The horrors documented in CECOT are the product of a capitalist system that is turning with increasing ferocity against the working class. Terrified at the growing support for socialism among workers and youth, the US ruling class is preparing the suppression of mass social opposition inside the United States itself. The Trump administration seized on the Alien Enemies Act because it provides a legal fig leaf for unlimited state power.

The Democratic Party responded not by opposing these attacks but by financing and expanding the machinery of repression. The “Big Beautiful Bill Act” allocates tens of billions of dollars for new for-profit prisons modeled on CECOT, while both parties collaborate to criminalize immigrants, protesters and political opponents.

The creation of “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida and other similar concentration camps throughout the US marks a new stage in this process. With the branding of “antifa” as a terrorist organization by the Trump administration, any expression of opposition to the destruction of democratic rights, to the capitalist system or to imperialist war will become grounds for indefinite detention.

The scenes now unfolding in Chicago, Los Angeles and major cities across the country, where federal agents and militarized police assault workers, are test runs for a broader campaign of state violence.

As Trotsky explained in his analysis of the rise of fascism in the 1930s, the bourgeoisie turns to dictatorship when it can no longer rule through the traditional forms of democracy. The descent into torture, indefinite detention and mass deportation is inseparable from the catastrophic levels of inequality and social misery produced by American capitalism.

The fight against these crimes cannot be waged through appeals to the Democratic Party or any faction of the existing political establishment. It requires the independent political mobilization of the working class across national boundaries, armed with a socialist program to dismantle the apparatus of repression and bring those responsible for these atrocities to justice.

Only such a movement can prevent the spread of the CECOT model internationally and halt the drive toward dictatorship.