Matt Gaetz visited El Salvador's mega-prison and saw people drained of hope. He then pitched it to Stephen Miller [View all]

Source: The Independent

Friday 25 April 2025 16:47 BST


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.

“The conditions had zapped the inhabitants of any will to fight,” Gaetz told TIME. “It’s tough to see the state of the human condition drained of hope.” Gaetz then pitched the idea of sending migrants to the mega-prison to immigration hardliner Miller, a source told the outlet, who then presented it to Trump.

“One of the reasons I like it is because it would be much less expensive than our prison system, and I think it would actually be a greater deterrent,” Trump said in an interview with TIME.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/matt-gaetz-el-salvador-prison-trump-deportation-b2739596.html