7 ms·

Abrego Garcia Was Beaten and Tortured in El Salvador Prison, Lawyers Say

119 points by perihelions 1y ago

pavlov 1y ago
A country that specializes in building outsourced concentration camps and hosting foreign cryptocurrency hustlers. El Salvador is starting to sound like the location for a side plot in a 1990s cyberpunk novel.
- hyperliner 1y ago
  [dead]
atoav 1y ago
Which explains why the administration has acted the way it did. What has the US become? I am not surprised by the fact that Trump is a fascist, this is a thing I knew in 2016. What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. I remember a time where americans scolded me online for my countries laws preventing certain types of speech (related to nazi insignia and Hitler), you guys do realize that if your government can just make up bullshit about you and send you to a torture camp abroad without due process, that free speech is no longer free? Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what.
- khazhoux 1y ago
  > What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. There should be no surprise at what has happened, since this is what the US voted for.
- easyThrowaway 1y ago
  As someone from outside US but who spent some time in LA can't really believe anyone ever took those "second amendment" guys at face value. It was always the most obvious cover for "say or do something we don't like and we shot you". The current US administration policies were always their end game.
  - ghufran_syed 1y ago
    why would this be the case? Taking the 2nd amendment argument to its logical conclusion, wouldn't the speaker also have a firearm?
    - rgblambda 1y ago
      The speaker would need to sleep every night with a gun under their pillow, in a room with no window.
    - easyThrowaway 1y ago
      In a game-theory-prisoner-dilemma kind of situation, yeah, maybe. In the real world, those guys were always sure to point their to guns to those they knew very obviously couldn't retaliate back. And I'm not strictly talking about minorities, by the way. Simply, those who weren't part of their circle had a rough time and the police made very clear that they would act in their defense if anyone tried something funny. I've only seen shit like this in sicily in the early 90s, when the mob controlled much of the big cities.
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        This is how you get revolutionary militant resistance like the Black Panthers (and militias).
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      The logical conclusion, yes. I hope we don't need to get to that point. The current reality is that the people who say this often say it to those they know don't have guns themselves to fire back with. Bullies, to put it in the simplest terms. They only take easy targets.
- CursedSilicon 1y ago
  I think this will be a veeeery unpopular opinion on this site. But I think the simple reality is this is the natural end state of unchecked capitalism. The entire model the US has been on since Reagan has been a rapid, uncontrollable concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer. The reality of that is of course, wealth translates (roughly) to power On the reverse, in an authoritarian state you need to concentrate power in the hands of as absolutely few as possible. The loyal ones who keep the empire running Of course you also need to convince the working class to "play along" with your game as you fleece the blind. So you enter the role of the fourth estate, particularly after Nixon. You just have to convince enough percentage of the population that you're "fighting for them" So you create enemies. "The Gays" "The Trans" "The Browns" and all other cornucopia of manufactured enemies. Anything to divide and conquer and prevent the proles from rising up and obliterating your empire
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Decent hypothesis, but fails when we compare America to other capitalist countries. (Or non-capitalist countries, extant and historically, with extreme wealth inequality.) This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The police state we built internally, lack of trust we engendered externally, economic straitjacket trillions of useless spending caused to our livelihoods and then resulting collapse of the party of Reagan into the vindictive mess it is today, all of these trace from the Iraq War.
    - cma 1y ago
      Under the first Bush and continued under Clinton, Haitian asylum seekers were interdicted at sea and sent to Guantanamo to avoid due process, which set the stage for its use in the war on terror. However, in these earlier uses it was for additional processing to give a chance at asylum for those claiming persecution and others not seeking it were deported back to Haiti directly. But it was still used to avoid full due process. Under treaties that are supposed to be law of the land under the constitution, we are supposed to accept legitimate asylum seekers.
    - CursedSilicon 1y ago
- boabp 1y ago
  [dead]
- rgblambda 1y ago
  >were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech I've gotten into arguments with people (usually non Americans who tend to have an American tinge to their accents from consuming so much U.S. media) who are very pro 2nd amendment and wish their country had similar. I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?". They usually say "Well at least they have that" then quickly move the discussion on to something else. Anyone who's seen an episode of Cops knows how much protection a firearm provides you against law enforcement. Zero.
  - matwood 1y ago
    At an individual level you are correct, but that's not what the 2nd amendment was about. An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again.
    - rgblambda 1y ago
      I don't believe either of those examples are appropriate. The U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war. The opposite would happen. The insurgency would surrender. Also in the case of Vietnam, it's worth noting that the Viet Cong for all intents and purposes lost the insurgency. The war was won by the conventional forces of North Vietnam after the U.S ceased military aid to the south. I also missed the most important point. Neither country had a 2nd amendment and both insurgencies imported arms illegally. And actual military hardware at that, not revolvers and sporting shotguns.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression. There is a massive difference between pacifying a city with a couple of Marines and National Guardsmen and calling in air strikes on the homeland.
- sussmannbaka 1y ago
  They didn't "become" anything. They didn't "give away" anything. The torture prison and fascism isn't a bug, it's a feature. People voted for this. A large part of this community voted for it, probably the majority.
- lysp 1y ago
  I also put this blame on the US supreme court too. 1. Presidential absolute immunity decision. 2. The fact that they constantly consider the dozens of presidential appeals. If DT has no risk of jail, he does what he likes with impunity. Also the SC has allowed him to not take any lower court decisions seriously, by not rejecting his numerous vexatious appeals. No accountability, no risk of punishment = free reign.
- throw0101b 1y ago
  > What has the US become? It has become what the popular and electoral college vote wished it to become. * https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt... * http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/...
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  My most overly generous interpretation is that any resistance within the party is intimidated down. We have cowards in congress who can't at least be decent enough to run away and live with their principles. If you followed the story of the "Big Beautiful Bill" you see this in action. Mumdami's potential vote in as Mayor of New York is the only little spark at tihs moment that gives me hope that there may be a blue wave coming next year, when a 3rd of congress is up for election. >Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what. Ding Ding ding. Sadly, the 2A crowd is comprised mostly of people who are in fact fine with a dictator. As long as they agree with the dictator.
suzzer99 1y ago
Andry José Hernández Romero, the gay hairdresser whose only crime seems to be having the wrong tattoos, is still stuck in CECOT. His lawyers haven't been able to contact him. No one's sure if he's alive. https://www.advocate.com/news/andry-romero-family-worried-cecot https://www.advocate.com/news/andry-romero-family-worried-ce... It's important to note that he made an appointment to seek asylum, then crossed the border when it was time for his appointment. He was granted asylum for credible fear. At no point did he break any US laws as far as anyone knows.
- tastyface 1y ago
  And based on their rhetoric and behavior, I’m sure people like Miller and Noem only smile at the thought of what he may be going through.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- thunky 1y ago
  This story and others like it should be front page news every day until this abuse is stopped. Yet sadly this is the first I've heard about this man.
tastyface 1y ago
These do not seem like conditions that an ordinary person would survive for very long. What happened to the other deportees, such as Andry José Hernandez, the gay barber? Are they even still alive? Or just experiencing hell on earth every waking day for the crime of having some tattoos? The people complicit in this scheme are monsters who've chosen to shed their humanity. Certainly the guards who partake in sadism as a career and enjoy it; but in particular that grinning ghoul Bukele and his virulently racist enablers in the US, as well as anyone who doubles down even after learning that many of the convicts are, in effect, innocent. For God’s sake, they prettied this man up, paraded him out to Senator Van Hollen, and cracked jokes about drinking margaritas. How morally vacant do you have to be to pull a stunt like that? Even more fucked up that the whole thing was a farce to begin with, given the dropped charges against MS-13 leaders: https://www.inkl.com/news/trump-admin-dropped-charges-against-ms-13-leaders-following-pact-between-gang-and-bukele-admin-report https://www.inkl.com/news/trump-admin-dropped-charges-agains... I desperately hope that all these people someday face their own Nuremberg.
potato-peeler 1y ago
Meta comment: have noticed some posts get flagged. Is it because they are political?
- bananapub 1y ago
  no, there's just a concerted flagging campaign for anything about atrocities perpetrated by the US government.
  - sundaeofshock 1y ago
    Gary Tan is a right wing tool, so this makes perfect sense.
  - IAmGraydon 1y ago
    Why does everyone want to invent a conspiracy these days? There's no "concerted flagging campaign". We, the users, are here to uphold the content policies of HN, and we do so by voting to flag posts that violate it. The content policy is what it is, and it doesn't play favorites. There have been MANY political posts in recent times that have not been flagged. Here's a handful in just the last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434239
    - SauciestGNU 1y ago
      This is new information about the type and extent of extrajudicial torture (and likely murder) the USA is engaging in against its perceived political enemies. This hasn't been discussed in depth since Abu Ghraib.
      - IAmGraydon 1y ago
        This has already been posted in a thread that was not flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44451722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44451722 So no, it's not new information.
throw0101b 1y ago
See also "DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship": * https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalization-trump-immigration-enforcement https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalizatio... "DOJ memo pushes for broader effort to revoke naturalized US citizenship": * https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5379452-doj-memo-denaturalized-us-citizens-trump-immigration/ https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5379452-doj-mem... "DOJ directs US attorneys to seek to revoke citizenship of naturalized Americans over crime" * https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-directs-us-attorneys-seek-revoke-citizenship-naturalized-americans-over-crime https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-directs-us-attorneys-seek-rev...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
adultSwim 1y ago
He lost 31 pounds during two weeks in CECOT.

119 points by perihelions 1y ago

A country that specializes in building outsourced concentration camps and hosting foreign cryptocurrency hustlers. El Salvador is starting to sound like the location for a side plot in a 1990s cyberpunk novel.

hyperliner 1y ago
[dead]

atoav 1y ago

Which explains why the administration has acted the way it did. What has the US become? I am not surprised by the fact that Trump is a fascist, this is a thing I knew in 2016. What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. I remember a time where americans scolded me online for my countries laws preventing certain types of speech (related to nazi insignia and Hitler), you guys do realize that if your government can just make up bullshit about you and send you to a torture camp abroad without due process, that free speech is no longer free? Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what.

khazhoux 1y ago
> What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights. There should be no surprise at what has happened, since this is what the US voted for.
easyThrowaway 1y ago
As someone from outside US but who spent some time in LA can't really believe anyone ever took those "second amendment" guys at face value. It was always the most obvious cover for "say or do something we don't like and we shot you". The current US administration policies were always their end game.
- ghufran_syed 1y ago
  why would this be the case? Taking the 2nd amendment argument to its logical conclusion, wouldn't the speaker also have a firearm?
  - rgblambda 1y ago
    The speaker would need to sleep every night with a gun under their pillow, in a room with no window.
  - easyThrowaway 1y ago
    In a game-theory-prisoner-dilemma kind of situation, yeah, maybe. In the real world, those guys were always sure to point their to guns to those they knew very obviously couldn't retaliate back. And I'm not strictly talking about minorities, by the way. Simply, those who weren't part of their circle had a rough time and the police made very clear that they would act in their defense if anyone tried something funny. I've only seen shit like this in sicily in the early 90s, when the mob controlled much of the big cities.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      This is how you get revolutionary militant resistance like the Black Panthers (and militias).
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    The logical conclusion, yes. I hope we don't need to get to that point. The current reality is that the people who say this often say it to those they know don't have guns themselves to fire back with. Bullies, to put it in the simplest terms. They only take easy targets.
CursedSilicon 1y ago
I think this will be a veeeery unpopular opinion on this site. But I think the simple reality is this is the natural end state of unchecked capitalism. The entire model the US has been on since Reagan has been a rapid, uncontrollable concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer. The reality of that is of course, wealth translates (roughly) to power On the reverse, in an authoritarian state you need to concentrate power in the hands of as absolutely few as possible. The loyal ones who keep the empire running Of course you also need to convince the working class to "play along" with your game as you fleece the blind. So you enter the role of the fourth estate, particularly after Nixon. You just have to convince enough percentage of the population that you're "fighting for them" So you create enemies. "The Gays" "The Trans" "The Browns" and all other cornucopia of manufactured enemies. Anything to divide and conquer and prevent the proles from rising up and obliterating your empire
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  Decent hypothesis, but fails when we compare America to other capitalist countries. (Or non-capitalist countries, extant and historically, with extreme wealth inequality.) This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The police state we built internally, lack of trust we engendered externally, economic straitjacket trillions of useless spending caused to our livelihoods and then resulting collapse of the party of Reagan into the vindictive mess it is today, all of these trace from the Iraq War.
  - cma 1y ago
    Under the first Bush and continued under Clinton, Haitian asylum seekers were interdicted at sea and sent to Guantanamo to avoid due process, which set the stage for its use in the war on terror. However, in these earlier uses it was for additional processing to give a chance at asylum for those claiming persecution and others not seeking it were deported back to Haiti directly. But it was still used to avoid full due process. Under treaties that are supposed to be law of the land under the constitution, we are supposed to accept legitimate asylum seekers.
  - CursedSilicon 1y ago
boabp 1y ago
[dead]
rgblambda 1y ago
>were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech I've gotten into arguments with people (usually non Americans who tend to have an American tinge to their accents from consuming so much U.S. media) who are very pro 2nd amendment and wish their country had similar. I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?". They usually say "Well at least they have that" then quickly move the discussion on to something else. Anyone who's seen an episode of Cops knows how much protection a firearm provides you against law enforcement. Zero.
- matwood 1y ago
  At an individual level you are correct, but that's not what the 2nd amendment was about. An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again.
  - rgblambda 1y ago
    I don't believe either of those examples are appropriate. The U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war. The opposite would happen. The insurgency would surrender. Also in the case of Vietnam, it's worth noting that the Viet Cong for all intents and purposes lost the insurgency. The war was won by the conventional forces of North Vietnam after the U.S ceased military aid to the south. I also missed the most important point. Neither country had a 2nd amendment and both insurgencies imported arms illegally. And actual military hardware at that, not revolvers and sporting shotguns.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression. There is a massive difference between pacifying a city with a couple of Marines and National Guardsmen and calling in air strikes on the homeland.
sussmannbaka 1y ago
They didn't "become" anything. They didn't "give away" anything. The torture prison and fascism isn't a bug, it's a feature. People voted for this. A large part of this community voted for it, probably the majority.
lysp 1y ago
I also put this blame on the US supreme court too. 1. Presidential absolute immunity decision. 2. The fact that they constantly consider the dozens of presidential appeals. If DT has no risk of jail, he does what he likes with impunity. Also the SC has allowed him to not take any lower court decisions seriously, by not rejecting his numerous vexatious appeals. No accountability, no risk of punishment = free reign.
throw0101b 1y ago
> What has the US become? It has become what the popular and electoral college vote wished it to become. * https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt... * http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ http://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/...
johnnyanmac 1y ago
My most overly generous interpretation is that any resistance within the party is intimidated down. We have cowards in congress who can't at least be decent enough to run away and live with their principles. If you followed the story of the "Big Beautiful Bill" you see this in action. Mumdami's potential vote in as Mayor of New York is the only little spark at tihs moment that gives me hope that there may be a blue wave coming next year, when a 3rd of congress is up for election. >Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what. Ding Ding ding. Sadly, the 2A crowd is comprised mostly of people who are in fact fine with a dictator. As long as they agree with the dictator.

suzzer99 1y ago

Andry José Hernández Romero, the gay hairdresser whose only crime seems to be having the wrong tattoos, is still stuck in CECOT. His lawyers haven't been able to contact him. No one's sure if he's alive. https://www.advocate.com/news/andry-romero-family-worried-cecot https://www.advocate.com/news/andry-romero-family-worried-ce... It's important to note that he made an appointment to seek asylum, then crossed the border when it was time for his appointment. He was granted asylum for credible fear. At no point did he break any US laws as far as anyone knows.

tastyface 1y ago
And based on their rhetoric and behavior, I’m sure people like Miller and Noem only smile at the thought of what he may be going through.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
thunky 1y ago
This story and others like it should be front page news every day until this abuse is stopped. Yet sadly this is the first I've heard about this man.

tastyface 1y ago

These do not seem like conditions that an ordinary person would survive for very long. What happened to the other deportees, such as Andry José Hernandez, the gay barber? Are they even still alive? Or just experiencing hell on earth every waking day for the crime of having some tattoos? The people complicit in this scheme are monsters who've chosen to shed their humanity. Certainly the guards who partake in sadism as a career and enjoy it; but in particular that grinning ghoul Bukele and his virulently racist enablers in the US, as well as anyone who doubles down even after learning that many of the convicts are, in effect, innocent. For God’s sake, they prettied this man up, paraded him out to Senator Van Hollen, and cracked jokes about drinking margaritas. How morally vacant do you have to be to pull a stunt like that? Even more fucked up that the whole thing was a farce to begin with, given the dropped charges against MS-13 leaders: https://www.inkl.com/news/trump-admin-dropped-charges-against-ms-13-leaders-following-pact-between-gang-and-bukele-admin-report https://www.inkl.com/news/trump-admin-dropped-charges-agains... I desperately hope that all these people someday face their own Nuremberg.

potato-peeler 1y ago

Meta comment: have noticed some posts get flagged. Is it because they are political?

bananapub 1y ago
no, there's just a concerted flagging campaign for anything about atrocities perpetrated by the US government.
- sundaeofshock 1y ago
  Gary Tan is a right wing tool, so this makes perfect sense.
- IAmGraydon 1y ago
  Why does everyone want to invent a conspiracy these days? There's no "concerted flagging campaign". We, the users, are here to uphold the content policies of HN, and we do so by voting to flag posts that violate it. The content policy is what it is, and it doesn't play favorites. There have been MANY political posts in recent times that have not been flagged. Here's a handful in just the last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44438360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434239
  - SauciestGNU 1y ago
    This is new information about the type and extent of extrajudicial torture (and likely murder) the USA is engaging in against its perceived political enemies. This hasn't been discussed in depth since Abu Ghraib.
    - IAmGraydon 1y ago
      This has already been posted in a thread that was not flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44451722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44451722 So no, it's not new information.

throw0101b 1y ago

See also "DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship": * https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalization-trump-immigration-enforcement https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalizatio... "DOJ memo pushes for broader effort to revoke naturalized US citizenship": * https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5379452-doj-memo-denaturalized-us-citizens-trump-immigration/ https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5379452-doj-mem... "DOJ directs US attorneys to seek to revoke citizenship of naturalized Americans over crime" * https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-directs-us-attorneys-seek-revoke-citizenship-naturalized-americans-over-crime https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-directs-us-attorneys-seek-rev...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

adultSwim 1y ago

He lost 31 pounds during two weeks in CECOT.