Claim:
Photo authentically shows deprived of deprived people, stripped of most clothes and tied together in Secot, a prison in Salvadoran.
Evaluation:
Evaluation: Miscellaneous
Context:
The photo shows a prison in El Salvador – but not Sekot, a detention center, where US President Donald Trump’s administration wrongly deports Kilmar Abgo Garcia in 2025. The photo, taken in April 2020, shows Iskalko’s prison. The conditions of the prison in both places in El Salvador are known poor according to human rights groups.
In April 2025, US President Donald Trump deported suspected gang members from Venezuela and El Salvador at the CECOT Center (CECOT), a prison with maximum security in El Salvador. Trump was also considering deporting Salvador’s convicted citizens. Against the backdrop of these deportations, a photo distributed online, claiming to show members of the band, deprived of most clothes and tied together in prison in Salvador.
The photo is from Reddit of 2024 with the inscription: “A prison in Salvador. A country known for the highest percentage of killings in the world, now has the highest percentage of imprisonment in the world.”
(Reddit)
Snopes readers sent us the same image, asking if it was showing Cecot, where Trump had deported undocumented migrants and intended to deport US citizens. Many online also claimed that the image shows the aforementioned Cecot. One publication shared the same images of men who were stripped and tied from different angles, with the inscription “What happens in Cecot?”
While the above image shows a group of men closed and tied to Salvador prison, this does not show Cecot. The above image was made in 2020 and shows a different place, Iskalko’s prison, in El Salvador. As such, we appreciate this request as different.
Using the search for the reverse image of Google, we found that the photo was taken on April 25, 2020 and was released by President of El Salvador President. According to the inscription from the Associated Press:
This Saturday, April 25, 2020, a photo published by President of President of El Salvador, prisoners were arranged during a security operation under the police clock at Iskalko Prison in San Salvador, El Salvador. Last weekend in El Salvador, there were 47 murders, a jump of violence, which the government claims to have been directed by bands in prison. The government responded by releasing pictures of closed gang members, stripped of virtually naked and arranged against each other as a punishment, and the president’s most boucier said he had authorized the use of deadly force against gangs and ordered their members to be placed in the same prison cells, creating the potential for more bloodshed.
The images show some of the men wearing face masks while stuck together, undressed and tied.
This seems to be a regular practice in this particular prison. We found pictures of the same situation and location taken in September 2020 to Getty Images. According to the inscriptions:
Members of the Mara 18 and MS-13 gangs are seen in the prison of the prison for maximum security in Iskalko, Sinonnah, El Salvador on September 4, 2020, against the background of the new coronavirus pandemic. The Salvadoran government showed on Friday the “strict” conditions of withdrawal of the gang members in prisons of the country, against the backdrop of a dispute caused by a journalistic report that denies the alleged gang members of the gang to reduce the killings.
According to Human Rights Watch, Salvador’s prisons have 108,000 detainees living in conditions intended for only 70,000. The human rights group conducted interviews with ex -deprived people and found examples of brutal torture, beatings and inhuman conditions in the prison system. The group announced that El Salvador President’s proposal to shelter the US deported immigrants and even US citizens will make US complicit in human rights violations:
Sending people in such conditions would not only make the US Government in violations of human rights, but would also repeat past mistakes. The MS13 and Barrio 18, the brutal gangs, who until recently had terrorized neighborhoods in El Salvador, were born in part of deportations from the United States and the harsh practices of El Salvador’s law enforcement. The US deportations in the 1990s, during the Clinton Administration, allowed these bands to expand.
On March 20, 2025, the Human Rights Watch Director for the America Department also noted the difference between Cecot and Izalco:
While Cecot probably has more modern technologies and infrastructure than other prisons in El Salvador, I understand the abuse of those detained there to be largely similar to what Human Rights Watch has documented in other prisons in Salvador, including Iskalko, La Esperanza (Mariona) and Santa Anna. This includes cases of torture, abuse, retention of non -communicado, severe disorders of the proper process and inhuman conditions, such as lack of access to adequate health and food.
At the end of March 2025, immigration and customs law enforcement (ICE) recognized as a “administrative error” in the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant with a protective status in Cecot. The US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of abbro Garcia to the United States to this writing, it was still in prison.
Sources:
“Can Trump legitimically deport US citizens to Salvador prisons?” Al Jazeera, April 17, 2025 https://www.aljazeera.com/News/2025/4/16/can- trump-legally-deport-us-s-citizens- to- el-salvador-prisons.“TARGET =” empty “> https://www.aljazeera.com/News/2025/4/16/can-trump-legally-deport-us-citizens- to-el-salvador-p Risons.” Access to April 17, 2025.
“The leader of Salvador is fighting crime and the virus, against the backdrop of criticism.” AP News, April 28, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/virus-utbreak-unitd-nations-ap-Pop-news-san-salvador-f1118de744e72d3ea2abb6c950.“Target =” empty “> https://apnews.com/article/virus-utbreak-unitd-nations-angs-ap-ms-san-san-salvador-f1118de744fe11e72d3ea2ab B6c950.”
El Salvador’s prisons are not a place for us deported | Human Rights Watch. March 13, 2025, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-no-place-us-deportees.“Target =” blank “> https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-no-place-us-deportees.”> https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/13/el-salvadors-prisons-are-n-lapain-us-deportees. Access to 17 April 2025
“Ice recognizes” an “administrative mistake” after Maryland’s husband sent to Salvador prison. ” ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/politics/ice-Admits-administtil-error-after-maryland-er-el/story?id=120359991.“Target =” empty “> https://abcnews.go.com/politics/ice-Admits-administtil-error-after-maryland-er-el/story?id=120 359991.”> https://abcnews.go.com/politics/ice-Admits-administtil-error-after-maryland-er-el/story?id=120359991. Access to 17 April 2025
“Members of Mara 18 and” MS-13 “are seen in the arrest of …” Getty Images, September 5, 2020, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-mara-8-And-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-foto/1228357204.“TARGET =” empty “> https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-mara-8-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-custody-news-photo/128 3.
“Members of Mara 18 and” MS-13 “are seen in the arrest of …” Getty Images, September 5, 2020, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-mara-8-And-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-foto/1228356510.“Target =” empty “> https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-mara-8-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-custody-news-photo/1228 356510. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-mara-8-And-ms-13-gangs-are-seen-in-custody-foto/1228356510. Access to 17 April 2025