CHAINED, BEATEN, TORTURED: Abrego Garcia Details His Ordeal at CECOT

New filing details the precise experience of Kilmar Abrego Garcia at CECOT

Author’s Note: I consider myself a fairly tough, resilient human being who has experienced things like getting arrested by the KGB at the peak of the Cold War. But when I first learned of CECOT, and saw the images emanating from there showing what inmates are subjected to, it genuinely disturbed me. I found myself imagining actually going through the experience that the inmates there must endure. I wondered in a very personal way - what would it be like and how would I handle it.? Now we have Abrego Garcia’s new filing, with paragraphs 117-130 detailing his actual experience, I felt it was important to share it in a detailed, factual way, without embellishment, exactly as it is presented in the filing.

“Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.”

Following is a verbatim presentation of the actual experience that Abrego Garcia underwent at CECOT.

117. Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was the first name called to disembark the plane that transported him to El Salvador on March 15, 2025. As he exited the aircraft, still in chains, two officials grabbed his arms and pushed him down the stairs, forcing his head down.

118. There were strong lights illuminating the area despite it being nighttime, and cameras were filming the detainees’ arrival. 119. Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was pushed toward a bus, forcibly seated, and fitted with a second set of chains and handcuffs. He was repeatedly struck by officers when he attempted to raise his head. He observed an ICE agent on the bus communicating with Salvadoran officials to confirm the identities of the Salvadoran nationals on board before the bus departed.

120. Upon arrival at CECOT, the detainees were greeted by a prison official who stated, “Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.” Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was then forced to strip, issued prison clothing, and subjected to physical abuse including being kicked in the legs with boots and struck on his head and arms to make him change clothes faster. His head was shaved with a zero razor, and he was frog-marched to cell 15, being struck with wooden batons along the way. By the following day, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia had visible bruises and lumps all over his body.

121. In Cell 15, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia and 20 other Salvadorans were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion. During this time, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself. The detainees were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.

122. After approximately one week at CECOT, prison director Osiris Luna and other officials separated the 21 Salvadorans who had arrived together. Twelve individuals with visible gang-related tattoos were moved to another cell, while Plaintiff Abrego Garcia remained with eight others who, like him, upon information and belief had no gang affiliations or tattoos.

123. As reflected by his segregation, the Salvadoran authorities recognized that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was not affiliated with any gang and, at around this time, prison officials explicitly acknowledged that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him “your tattoos are fine

124. While at CECOT, prison officials repeatedly told Plaintiff Abrego Garcia that they would transfer him to the cells containing gang members who, they assured him, would “tear” him apart.

125. Indeed, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells who he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention from guards or personnel. Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards on personnel.

126. During his first two weeks at CECOT, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia suffered a significant deterioration in his physical condition and lost approximately 31 pounds (dropping from approximately 215 pounds to 184 pounds).

127. On April 9, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia and four others were transferred to a different module in CECOT, where they were photographed with mattresses and better food—photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions.

128. On or about April 10, 2025, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was transferred alone to the Centro Industrial prison facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador.

129. While at Centro Industrial, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was frequently hidden from visitors, being told to remain in a separate room whenever outside visitors came to the facility.

130. During his entire time in detention in El Salvador, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied any communication with his family and access to counsel until Senator Van Hollen visited him on April 17, 2025.

Hundreds Still Trapped, Silenced, Forgotten

While Abrego Garcia’s case has lit up court dockets and headlines, an estimated hundreds of other U.S. withholding-of-removal winners remain incommunicado at CECOT. No letters. No visits. No due process. Many have never seen a judge since alleged gang ties—often based on flawed intelligence—were used to justify their removal.

• Capacity vs. Reality

  • Cells: 256

  • Intended capacity: 80 per cell

  • Average population: ~150 per cell

• Deaths reported Mar 2022–23: 153

These aren’t just numbers. They’re fathers, mothers, spouses, and children—many of whom have U.S. citizen family members desperately fighting to know their fate.

A Crisis of Justice: Legal, Moral & Ethical Reckoning

Due Process Violated
Mr. Abrego won his withholding-of-removal claim in 2019. A federal court—and later the Supreme Court—explicitly ordered DHS to treat his case “as if he’d never been sent away.” Yet without warrant or hearing, he was marched onto that plane and into torment .

Cruel & Unusual Punishment?
The Eighth Amendment forbids “cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” by the federal government—and it protects any “person” under its authority, not just U.S. citizens. In ordinary immigration practice, deportation is treated as a civil removal, not a “punishment” under the Eighth Amendment. But here DHS went beyond mere removal: it deliberately funneled Mr. Abrego into a prison notorious for torture—fully aware of the beatings, forced kneeling, sleep deprivation, and psychological torment he would endure. Courts have recognized that constitutional protections can extend to non-citizen detainees when the U.S. exercises control over them—even extraterritorially (e.g., habeas rights for Guantánamo detainees in Boumediene v. Bush). By orchestrating his transfer into CECOT’s torture regime, the government effectively imposed punishment—and that punishment cannot, under any theory, be “cruel and unusual.”

Administrative Law Lapses
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agency actions must not be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” Ignoring court orders, mislabeling him a gang member on flimsy grounds, and sending him into torture camp territory—the hallmarks of arbitrary decision-making.

Ethical Responsibility
When our courts speak, our executive must listen. When our laws protect, our policies must enforce. Yet here we stand: courts order, DHS defies; judges decry, but detainees suffer in silence.

America has got to be better than this.