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@ Samuel Gabriel
2025-04-29 22:48:16
On the Use of El Salvador's CECOT Prison: A Necessary Distinction
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El Salvador’s CECOT prison — a massive, high-security facility designed to hold violent offenders — has drawn worldwide attention for its uncompromising conditions and strict control. As conversations grow about whether similar facilities could help manage criminal populations elsewhere, it is important to draw a clear and necessary distinction: how we handle foreign nationals versus American citizens.
When it comes to foreign nationals who commit serious crimes in the United States, I have no problem with them being sent to a facility like CECOT. If a non-citizen commits violent or dangerous acts within our borders, transferring them to a prison capable of handling hardened criminals is a practical and appropriate solution. Using facilities like CECOT for foreign nationals helps reduce the burden on the American prison system and maintains public safety without complicating our domestic responsibilities.
However, the situation must be different for American citizens.
Even when an American citizen commits a serious crime, they must remain under the jurisdiction and within the prison system of the United States. Citizenship carries with it not just rights, but obligations — one of which is the government's responsibility to oversee the legal and correctional process for its own citizens.
To make the stakes clear:
None of us would have accepted seeing January 6th defendants ("J6ers") sent to a foreign country like El Salvador for imprisonment, no matter what our views on their actions. Americans expect that American citizens will be tried, sentenced, and, if necessary, imprisoned here, in the United States, under American laws and within American institutions. The principle must apply consistently — whether for political protestors, violent criminals, or any other category of offenders.
Sending American citizens abroad for incarceration would erode the protections of due process, constitutional rights, and governmental accountability that are fundamental to the American system of justice. It would undermine the meaning of citizenship itself.
In short:
I have no problem with foreign nationals who commit serious crimes being sent to facilities like CECOT.
American citizens, however, must be kept within the United States' justice system, on American soil, under American law.
Maintaining this clear line is not just about geography — it is about preserving the integrity of our justice system, our national identity, and the responsibilities that come with being a citizen of the United States.