El Salvadoran Torture Prison Becomes Backdrop for US Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda Campaign
Eight years ago, Republicans ran ads featuring imprisoned El Salvadorans. Coming full-circle, they're now running propaganda operations from inside those same prisons—this time threatening to send us
On Monday evening, DHS announced the latest installment in its $200 million taxpayer-funded nativist propaganda campaign. These ads are designed to instill fear and encourage undocumented immigrants to “self-deport,” under the implicit threat of being disappeared into an El Salvadoran torture prison. This chilling evolution follows years of using the same imagery of imprisoned El Salvadorans across Republican campaign after campaign. President Nayib Bukele, for his part, has eagerly opened the prison’s doors to aid the U.S. government’s efforts – while simultaneously denying access to Democratic Members of Congress. This is what a 21st-century international authoritarian propaganda campaign looks like.
These DHS ads perpetuate the false, dehumanizing narrative that equates immigration with criminality. The ad opens with a Willie Horton-style strategic racist attack, evoking racist fears about community safety and casting Black and Brown men as foreign and dangerous. In clearer terms: this is government-funded racist propaganda. The criminality trope is racist bullshit. In study after study, and study, and study, and more study shows that immigrants have lower crime rates than the general population. This campaign isn’t about public safety; it’s about stoking fear with implicit racist messaging. In fact, a recent report found that 90% of the immigrants recently sent to the El Salvadoran prison had no prior criminal history in the United States.
The ad then pivots to threats of fines and imprisonment for undocumented immigrants who fail to register with Trump’s DHS. It features brutal imagery from the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador, many of which appear to be lifted straight from Bukele’s own highly produced video following the first deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants. Highlighting an interesting turn of international propaganda. These are followed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s own photo op, where men are staged inside the prison like background props.
Crucially, the DHS ad fails to differentiate between law-abiding, mixed-status American families – who have no legal path to regularize their status – and individuals who have committed violent crimes. By deliberately blurring this line, the ad implies that the lack of a permanent status is “criminal,” which to them also means the denial of due process and basic human rights. It fabricates the illusion that anyone caught in the mass deportation machine is a subhuman threat deserving of a cruel fate.
The ads are undeniably fear-inducing agitprop. But the idea that they’re anything more than taxpayer-funded political messaging is laughable. Like previous DHS ad campaigns, these are produced solely in English and end with images of Trump and Noem declaring, “Under Trump, America will be protected.” The longer 60-second cut of the ad just spends the additional time praising Trump. Oh, and there is the fact that Trump directed Noem to use the agency to produce the self-congratulatory ads.
Surprise, surprise, the hundreds of millions of dollars to run the nativist propaganda campaign is also a shady as fuck grift. Initially, Trump was draining the money for the political ads from the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties office inside DHS, but stopped after reporting exposed the likely illegal diversion of funds. Not only was Musk’s DOGE off limits from reviewing this massive waste, but DHS waived the competitive bidding process. After first lying in their initial announcement, DHS later asserted that they had done away with the anti-corruption and anti-waste measures because the ads were part of “an unusual and compelling urgency.” The urgency? The DHS Secretary’s not-so-secret mistress’s buddies needed a quick payday. Corey Lewandowski’s friends over at People Who Think, LLC who worked with Lewandowski as recently as October 2023, according to the Associated Press, was one of two firms that snagged the contract. The other Safe America Media, LLC, is run by another long-time GOP operative.
Using misleading imagery from inside an El Salvadoran prison for political ads isn’t new territory for Republicans. For years, Republican ad makers have been using the same photo of heavily tattooed MS-13 members taken inside an El Salvadoran prison in 2013 to incite xenophobic panic about the border and their immigrant neighbors. From campaign mailers in Virginia to primary ads in Texas, this image was everywhere in Republican ads for the last several years. But now, instead of nativist pilgrimages to the border wall, Republicans are sourcing B-roll from inside CECOT.
Coming full circle the imagery of from El Salvador was weaponized by Republican’s to create xenophoibc fictions to win political power. They are now using that power to send people to prisons in El Salvador, citing white nationalist fiction about an “invasion” to justify the effort, while creating new content for the next round of the propaganda campaign inside the El Salvadoran prison.
Bukele has been using CECOT for international propaganda purposes for well over a year. Opening the door of the prison to extreme travel online influencers before renting it out as a stage set to shoot the Republicans’ nativist propaganda campaign. Last summer MAGA influencer and nativist provocateur Nick Shirley was granted an extensive tour of both CECOT and the prison work camp to produce fawning pro-Bukele propaganda. Bukele is apparently a fan. The xenophobic tourism plays well for both the autocrats in El Salvador and the United States. Earlier this year, the authoritarian ass kissing paid off as Shirley was granted Oval Office access to observe the Trump and Bukele meeting.
Meanwhile, Bukele has denied access to Democratic Members of Congress. This is despite the $15 million El Salvador is being paid by the United States government to act as our detention camp, of which they are supposed to have oversight. Following the abduction and unlawful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Sen. Chris Van Hollen was only allowed to meet with Garcia after he was transferred out of CECOT. Following the meeting, Bukele and American-based right-wing online accounts feverishly sought to pump out lies and propaganda about the meeting. On Monday, Bukele denied a meeting with four Democratic Members of Congress again repostings large right-wing shitposting accounts to frame the narrative. The denial of the meetings and access for Democratic Members of Congress, as well as the steadfast refusal to return Garcia home, likely stems in part from their fear that they could pop the bubble on their propaganda campaign.
The result of this nativist propaganda is first metered out onto the “villains,” the “invaders,” our dehumanized immigrant neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family. Even if it ended there, we should be outraged at this racist, authoritarian assault that undermines American democracy and the prosperity of working people. But it won’t end there. Far from it. Trump is already talking about “homegrowns” or the United States citizens he wishes to purge from the nation. The list of un-Americans in the minds of the new nationalists is a long and expansive one. There is also a reason for the recent love affair with Bukele as he has suspended much of due process in his country and incarcerated one in every 57 Salvadorans. All the praise of Bukele is more of an indication of their planned destination. The point of the propaganda campaign is to sell the authoritarianism to the “real” American people. It's about slowly convincing enough of the populace to shrug off the mass round-ups, detentions, and disappearances as the military in the streets are just going after the “bad ones” the un-Americans who deserve it.