Donald Trump deported the first lot of alleged gang members from the US on Sunday (16 March), dooming them to serve a sentence in the 'worst prison on Earth'.
And if his administration's prior comments are anything to go by, it seems these could be the first of many flights packed with prisoners which are bound for El Salvador.
Trump has struck a controversial deal with the nation's President Nayib Bukele to deport people from the US - regardless of their nationality - to the notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT).
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US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, described it as the 'most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world'.
Human rights groups see the situation a lot differently, though - and fears are mounting about who might be forced onto a plane to El Salvador next.
The first flights out of the States were packed with 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 alleged members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.
Despite a judge issuing an order which temporarily blocked the 261 men being sent to El Salvador, it still went ahead, with Trump invoking an 18th century law intended for use in wartime.
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Bukele's crackdown on crime was the reason that CECOT was opened in 2023, and it seems it is now going hand-in-hand with Trump's crackdown on immigration.
Bukele said the prison would be a 'fundamental piece to completely win the war against gangs' after El Salvador declared a state of emergency in March 2022 as a result of the continuing violence.
Inmates are forced to follow a host of 'inhumane' rules at the maximum security jail, while living off a lacklustre diet and under the threat of being thrown into the terrifying solitary confinement cell.
The US will now pay El Salvador $6 million to imprison about 300 alleged gang members for one year 'pending the US' decision on their long term disposition', El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign affairs said, according to AP News.
The outlet also reported that the Trump administration may also set a whopping $15 million aside to send more people over to be imprisoned in CECOT.
Who can be sent to CECOT?
Well, after ironing out the deal with Rubio back in February, Bukele explained that he was willing to take in anyone who is deported from the US.
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"We can send them and he will put them in his jails," Rubio said previously, with the main targets being suspected gang members from other countries.
However, even US citizens and legal residents who are currently in custody in the States could face being shipped off to the maximum security CECOT, where conditions are less than favourable.
Rubio explained last month that El Salvador has also offered to 'do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States'.
Bukele confirmed these plans, explaining he had 'offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system'.
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The leader said that his country would be 'willing to take in only convicted criminals' and that El Salvador would do so 'in exchange for a fee'.
"The fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable," Bukele added.
CECOT has got a capacity of 40,000 inmates - and although the mega-jail doesn't disclose exactly how many people are incarcerated there, it seems there must still be room for a host of US prisoners.
It's the largest prison in Latin America and one of the largest in the world in terms of how many criminals it can hold - and El Salavador's justice minister has said that those held there will never return to their communities.
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But it is now something of a waiting game to see who else might be sent there, as the world waits to see if Trump will face any consequences for allegedly defying the ruling of US District Judge James E. Boasberg last weekend.
The president's administration asked the D.C. Circuit Court for a stay of the ruling on Sunday, claiming the judge's intervention was an 'unprecedented intrusion upon the Executive's authority to remove dangerous aliens who pose grave threats to the American people'.
US lawyer Bruce Fein, who specialises in constitutional and international law, reckons the stay will 'assuredly be denied within days'.
The president could take it to the US Supreme Court, but Fein reckons that the judges - who have ultimate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases - 'will say no' too.
"The president is not a king," Fein told Al Jazeera. "January 20, 2025, was not a coronation. The president is not Napoleon. Federal courts have jurisdiction over the president.
"The probability that Trump flouted Judge James Boasberg's order is high, but we need to await more due process."
“The court’s jurisdiction turns on the presence of the defendant in the United States, not the plaintiffs," he said, explaining that Trump is the defendant in this case and is in the US.
"He could be ordered to return deportees who had been illegally deported to the United States."
Topics: Prison, World News, US News, Crime
Olivia Burke