El Salvador's CECOT prison becomes Washington's go-to destination

As the battle over President Donald Trump's extrajudicial deportation agenda intensifies, lawmakers have begun descending on El Salvador's CECOT prison to stake their political claims on the White House's international outsourcing of its migrant detention program. Visits to CECOT have afforded Republicans another avenue for showcasing their fealty to the Trump administration and its anti-immigrant agenda. Democrats, conversely, want to highlight the president's cruelty toward those he's alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, and to advocate for the return of those detainees.

'There will be more members of Congress coming'

House Democrats are working to form an "official congressional delegation" to visit the CECOT terrorism confinement center, with "dozens" clamoring to be involved, Axios said. While individual lawmakers can visit the facility "informally," a GOP House committee chair's "approval is needed" to endow the group with "crucial oversight powers and security resources." In particular, the detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, the unlawfully detained and deported Maryland resident, has become a "political flashpoint on Capitol Hill," with Democratic lawmakers "lining up trips to El Salvador to press for his release," said Politico.

Democrats are "jumping on airplanes and headed down to El Salvador" where they "camp outside the prison camp where terrorists and murderers and rapists are held," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a recent episode of his "Verdict" podcast. This week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) traveled to El Salvador to work toward Ábrego García's release, but was initially barred from entering by Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa. "I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue," said Van Hollen at a press conference after his failed attempt to contact Ábrego García. "But there will be more and there will be more members of Congress coming." The senator was able to meet with Ábrego García on Thursday night.

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Only Trump's allies can 'wander and gawk'

While he may have been the first senator to attempt to visit CECOT, Van Hollen is "not the first member of Congress to travel to El Salvador recently," said The Washington Post. One day before Van Hollen's unsuccessful attempt, Republican Reps. Riley Moore (W. Va.), Carol Miller (W. Va.), Jason Smith (Mo.), Claudia Tenney (N.Y.), Mike Kennedy (Utah), Ron Estes (Kan.) and Kevin Hern (Okla.) visited the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador, and shared their own photographs at CECOT standing in front of prisoners.

That Van Hollen would be denied access one day after his Republican colleagues were able to enter the facility suggests CECOT "isn't a prison holding Americans," but instead is where Trump holds "political prisoners," said journalist Marisa Kabas on Substack. It's a place where "only his allies can wander and gawk."

Republicans are using their trips to El Salvador to "pivot from the legal fight" over Trump's deportations to a "proxy battle over illegal immigration," Politico said. It's a broader issue the party believes "plays to its favor." With a double thumbs-up photo-op at CECOT, Rep. Moore in particular "chose to be at the front of the line" of the Trump administration's "PR campaign," said Andrew Donaldson at West Virginia Watch. "I don't recall outright celebrations of Abu Ghraib on the right, like we are seeing now" with prisoners at CECOT, said U.S. Naval War College Professor and historian Joe Stieb to Kabas.