Noem Visits El Salvador Prison Holding Alleged Venezuelan Gang Members Deported by US

The homeland security secretary also plans to meet with El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele to discuss how to increase the number of deportation flights.

Prisoners watch behind bars as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, accompanied by Minister of Justice and Public Security Gustavo Villatoro (R), tours the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025. Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has kicked off her three-day trip to El Salvador, Mexico, and Colombia to tour the prisons that are holding Venezuelan illegal immigrants, including alleged gang members, recently deported by the United States.

Noem landed in Comalapa, El Salvador, on the afternoon of March 26 to take an inside look at the city’s maximum-security prison.

She shared a video from inside the Terrorism Confinement Center on social media platform X.

“First of all, do not come to our country illegally,” Noem said in the video while jailed inmates watched behind her. “You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know, that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”

The facility is home to the “worst-of-the-worst criminals,” Noem wrote in a separate post. Inmates at the prison are packed into cells and never allowed outside.

“The deportations of Tren De Aragua to the El Salvadorian Terrorist Confinement Center sent a message to the world that America is no longer a safe haven for violent criminals,” the DHS secretary said in a statement on X ahead of her trip.

In an agreement between the two countries, the United States paid El Salvador $6 million to imprison 300 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang for one year. But lawyers for the Venezuelan government on March 24 took legal action on behalf of the Venezuelan prisoners to seek their release.

Noem also plans to meet with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to discuss how to increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the United States.

Bukele’s government has arrested more than 84,000 people since 2022 as part of a crackdown on gang violence in his own country.

Noem’s visit comes as an appeals court on March 26 declined to issue a stay on a lower court’s orders that challenged President Donald Trump’s deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The centuries-old law allows noncitizens to be deported without going before an immigration or federal court judge.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a March 15 order that temporarily prohibited deportations under the wartime act. The lower court judge had ordered the plane carrying the deported Venezuelans to return to the United States as it was in the air and insisted that the deportees get the opportunity to challenge their designations as suspected gang members in a U.S. court.

The Trump administration, however, argued that it did not violate the judge’s order.

“The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that the order was issued after the planes were already “removed from U.S. territory.”

The legal back-and-forth has ignited the debate about whether a single judge can intervene in a president’s actions amid national security concerns. It has also sparked conversation over the president’s sweeping authority and the use of a centuries-old law to direct the deportations of illegal immigrants.

Noem is scheduled to visit Colombia on March 27 and Mexico on March 28.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD News