GOP congressman takes twisted journey to Salvadoran torture jail

GOP Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia traveled to El Salvador on Tuesday, the place he posed for photographs in entrance of immigrants incarcerated within the notoriously violent CECOT jail.

Moore posted 4 photographs from his go to, together with two exhibiting him standing in entrance of overcrowded jail cells the place immigrants are housed with none mattresses, pillows, correct diet, and even entry to talk with household or authorized representatives. 

In a single significantly disturbing picture, Moore is giving the digital camera two thumbs up.

Immigrants are seen being transferred by ICE officers to El Salvador’s notoriously violent jail, CECOT.

“I simply toured the CECOT jail in El Salvador. This most safety facility homes the nation’s most brutal criminals, together with murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and terrorists. A number of inmates had been extraordinarily violent criminals lately deported from the U.S. I depart now much more decided to help President Trump’s efforts to safe our homeland,” he wrote on X.

Moore is the newest Republican to go to CECOT, following Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, who took perverse pleasure in posing in entrance of the struggling folks behind her.

However whereas Republicans are busy creating torture porn from their visits to CECOT, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland left for El Salvador on Wednesday to watch the situations of the jail and to satisfy with Salvadoran officers. 

Particularly, Van Hollen is in search of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly despatched to CECOT. The Supreme Courtroom ordered the Trump administration to return Garcia to the USA, however President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele are refusing to launch him.

“I just landed in San Salvador a little while ago, and I look forward to meeting with the team at the U.S. embassy to discuss the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia. I also hope to meet with Salvadoran officials and with Kilmar himself. He was illegally abducted and needs to come home,” Van Hollen wrote on Bluesky Wednesday.

Different Democratic lawmakers have requested a congressional delegation (CODEL) to go to the jail, the place Trump now says he needs to ship U.S. residents. 

In a letter to Home Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, the Democrats looking for the CODEL wrote:

A Congressional delegation would enable Committee Members to conduct a welfare test on Mr. Abrego Garcia, in addition to others held at CECOT, reminiscent of Andry José Hernandez—a 30-year-old LGBTQ make-up artist who handed a “credible fear” interview throughout his authorized asylum course of earlier than being deported.

As well as, congressional oversight is warranted following President Trump’s latest remarks by which he expressed a need to ship “homegrown criminals”—together with U.S. residents—to this facility.

As you might be conscious, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal investigative committee of the Home of Representatives and has broad authority to look at “any matter” at “any time” below Home Rule X.

We’re ready to journey as quickly as potential. We might gladly embody any Republican Members of the Committee who want to take part. Provided that the Senate has already approved CODEL journey to CECOT, we consider the Home also needs to be represented. Thanks on your immediate consideration of this request.

In line with the Holocaust Museum’s definition, CECOT is a focus camp.

A focus camp, the museum says, “is a site for the detention of civilians whom a regime perceives to be a security risk of some sort. What distinguishes it from a prison (in the modern sense) is that incarceration in a concentration camp is independent of any judicial sentence or even indictment, and is not subject to judicial review.”

Certainly, 90% of these despatched to CECOT had by no means been convicted of a criminal offense, whereas 75% have by no means even been arrested, based on Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow on the American Immigration Council.

Nazis used focus camps “to incarcerate indefinitely folks whom the Nazi regime perceived to be a safety risk within the broadest potential sense (for instance, from a Jew with presupposed ‘international connections’ or perceived racial deficiencies, to an alcoholic who was incapable of holding a job),” based on the Holocaust Museum.

Sound acquainted?

In line with Moore, that deserves two thumbs up.

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