Bukele Defiant as Clinton Stirs Firestorm Over CECOT Prison Scandal

Paul Riverbank, 12/24/2025Hillary Clinton spotlights brutal Salvadoran prison; Bukele fires back, exposing a messy diplomatic showdown.

Clinton didn’t just tweet; she amplified the story with an 11-minute PBS Frontline video titled “Surviving CECOT.” The film zeroes in on three Venezuelans: Juan José Ramos Ramos, Andry Blanco Bonilla, and Wilmer Vega Sandia—men labeled gang members by U.S. authorities and put on a plane to El Salvador. Each man denied any ties to gangs, even to groups as infamous as Tren de Aragua, which they were accused of joining. “Curious to learn more about CECOT?” Clinton wrote, pointedly. She wasn’t shy about blaming the Trump administration for what she called “branding them gang members without evidence and deporting them.”

Bukele was having none of it. On X (formerly Twitter), he retorted—with his signature edge—offering to release El Salvador’s entire prison population, gang bosses and “political prisoners” included, to any country that would receive them. His jab cut further: “This would greatly assist journalists and your favorite NGOs, who would then have thousands of former inmates available for interviews, making it far easier to find additional voices critical of the Salvadoran government.” It was hard to miss the sarcasm. But Bukele drove home a point he’s made before: his government, he argued, owes its first duty to “the millions now living free from gangs.”

The saga didn’t unfold overnight. In a twist of geopolitical chess, the U.S. deported Venezuelan nationals to CECOT after Venezuela wouldn’t allow them back. Some bore tattoos that American officials claimed matched gang insignias; most weren’t charged with actual crimes. Quick, quiet flights sent them away, rarely with a hearing—details revealed in later court filings. The bureaucratic machinery moved with a speed that left due process as little more than an afterthought.

That’s where things took a legal turn. Judge James Boasberg, sitting on the federal bench in Washington, D.C., slammed the brakes. His courtroom became the latest stage for this international drama. In his words, the government “cannot just send people off to a brutal foreign prison with zero due process and simply walk away.” He cited clear violations of rights, ordering the administration to set out real plans for the deported men to challenge their removal. The ruling cracked open the possibility for the men to have hearings—whether back in the U.S., or remotely from El Salvador.

And what about life inside CECOT? The accounts are chilling. Luis Muñoz Pinto, a student, landed in the prison with hardly more than a suitcase—and no criminal record. “The first thing they told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again,” he recalled, still sounding slightly dazed in a recent interview. “Welcome to hell. I’ll make sure you never leave,” the director allegedly intoned on arrival. Human Rights Watch has published a lengthy catalog of abuses: beatings, meager rations, neglected medical needs, and disturbing initiation rituals that can only be described as torture. The charges that sent some men there, it seems, often didn’t go far beyond a tattoo—a Real Madrid logo in the case of Jerce Reyes Barrios, an amateur soccer player. He still gets nightmares, he told ABC News, traces of the trauma etched too deeply to fade easily.

Official responses zigzagged, with the Trump administration insisting it had no control over what befell the men once they were in Salvadoran custody. El Salvador’s own filings at the UN, meanwhile, pointed the finger squarely back at Washington, arguing that responsibility lay with the U.S.—not them.

The result? An uneasy, complicated standoff, with an American court demanding answers, a Salvadoran president doubling down on his iron-fisted approach, and former top U.S. officials like Clinton questioning both the process and the underlying justice. The ACLU’s Lee Gelernt called Judge Boasberg’s order a “clear message” about due process. Bukele, for his part, has worked to reframe the entire conversation: “We took back our streets,” he argues. His government’s public messaging is relentless—statistics trumpeted, personal stories of families no longer living in fear circulated widely. Outside critics, he suggests, are missing the transformation underway on the ground.

Zoom out, though, and the consequences ripple far beyond any single government. This is, after all, a story—messy and unresolved—about individuals caught in the gears of international relations and legal systems, tossed from one jurisdiction to another. They wait, not for the next news cycle to pass, but for justice, safety, and—above all—a chance to tell their side. For them, policy debates and headlines are distant thunder. What matters is far closer: whether tomorrow brings a cell, a courtroom, or a flight—or, perhaps, a bit of hope.

If there’s one thing El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has never seemed to lack, it’s an appetite for a public controversy—especially surrounding his country’s fierce campaign against gangs. In recent days, though, the drama has drifted well beyond his Salvadoran borders. The latest flare-up? This time it’s not just a local opposition or a human rights watchdog—it’s Hillary Clinton herself, the former U.S. Secretary of State, casting a spotlight on Bukele’s crackdown following America’s deportation of several Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s notoriously tough CECOT prison.Clinton didn’t just tweet; she amplified the story with an 11-minute PBS Frontline video titled “Surviving CECOT.” The film zeroes in on three Venezuelans: Juan José Ramos Ramos, Andry Blanco Bonilla, and Wilmer Vega Sandia—men labeled gang members by U.S. authorities and put on a plane to El Salvador. Each man denied any ties to gangs, even to groups as infamous as Tren de Aragua, which they were accused of joining. “Curious to learn more about CECOT?” Clinton wrote, pointedly. She wasn’t shy about blaming the Trump administration for what she called “branding them gang members without evidence and deporting them.”Bukele was having none of it. On X (formerly Twitter), he retorted—with his signature edge—offering to release El Salvador’s entire prison population, gang bosses and “political prisoners” included, to any country that would receive them. His jab cut further: “This would greatly assist journalists and your favorite NGOs, who would then have thousands of former inmates available for interviews, making it far easier to find additional voices critical of the Salvadoran government.” It was hard to miss the sarcasm. But Bukele drove home a point he’s made before: his government, he argued, owes its first duty to “the millions now living free from gangs.”The saga didn’t unfold overnight. In a twist of geopolitical chess, the U.S. deported Venezuelan nationals to CECOT after Venezuela wouldn’t allow them back. Some bore tattoos that American officials claimed matched gang insignias; most weren’t charged with actual crimes. Quick, quiet flights sent them away, rarely with a hearing—details revealed in later court filings. The bureaucratic machinery moved with a speed that left due process as little more than an afterthought.That’s where things took a legal turn. Judge James Boasberg, sitting on the federal bench in Washington, D.C., slammed the brakes. His courtroom became the latest stage for this international drama. In his words, the government “cannot just send people off to a brutal foreign prison with zero due process and simply walk away.” He cited clear violations of rights, ordering the administration to set out real plans for the deported men to challenge their removal. The ruling cracked open the possibility for the men to have hearings—whether back in the U.S., or remotely from El Salvador.And what about life inside CECOT? The accounts are chilling. Luis Muñoz Pinto, a student, landed in the prison with hardly more than a suitcase—and no criminal record. “The first thing they told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again,” he recalled, still sounding slightly dazed in a recent interview. “Welcome to hell. I’ll make sure you never leave,” the director allegedly intoned on arrival. Human Rights Watch has published a lengthy catalog of abuses: beatings, meager rations, neglected medical needs, and disturbing initiation rituals that can only be described as torture. The charges that sent some men there, it seems, often didn’t go far beyond a tattoo—a Real Madrid logo in the case of Jerce Reyes Barrios, an amateur soccer player. He still gets nightmares, he told ABC News, traces of the trauma etched too deeply to fade easily.Official responses zigzagged, with the Trump administration insisting it had no control over what befell the men once they were in Salvadoran custody. El Salvador’s own filings at the UN, meanwhile, pointed the finger squarely back at Washington, arguing that responsibility lay with the U.S.—not them.The result? An uneasy, complicated standoff, with an American court demanding answers, a Salvadoran president doubling down on his iron-fisted approach, and former top U.S. officials like Clinton questioning both the process and the underlying justice. The ACLU’s Lee Gelernt called Judge Boasberg’s order a “clear message” about due process. Bukele, for his part, has worked to reframe the entire conversation: “We took back our streets,” he argues. His government’s public messaging is relentless—statistics trumpeted, personal stories of families no longer living in fear circulated widely. Outside critics, he suggests, are missing the transformation underway on the ground.Zoom out, though, and the consequences ripple far beyond any single government. This is, after all, a story—messy and unresolved—about individuals caught in the gears of international relations and legal systems, tossed from one jurisdiction to another. They wait, not for the next news cycle to pass, but for justice, safety, and—above all—a chance to tell their side. For them, policy debates and headlines are distant thunder. What matters is far closer: whether tomorrow brings a cell, a courtroom, or a flight—or, perhaps, a bit of hope.