What to know about CECOT, the prison at the center of "60 Minutes" controversy

CBS News pulled a "60 Minutes" segment on the Trump administration deporting Venezuelan immigrants to an El Salvador prison, with staffers alleging that the move was a politically motivated appeal to the president. The big picture: The prison, CECOT in El Salvador, has become a symbol of President Trump's harsh immigration crackdown, with courts, immigration activists and civil libertarians accusing the administration of steamrolling due process. The Trump administration sent more than 280 migrants to CECOT in March, about 230 of whom are from Venezuela. Driving the news: CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulled the segment days after Trump publicly complained that "60 Minutes" was treating him "far worse" since CBS' parent company was acquired earlier this year. "60 Minutes" announced on social media Sunday afternoon that it was dropping the segment from that evening's broadcast lineup, but said that it would air at a later date.Weiss told producers that the team didn't do enough to get administration officials on the record, Axios' Sarah Fischer reports.Sharyn Alfonsi, the segment's correspondent, defended the story as "factually correct" and said it underwent a thorough legal review, according a copy of the email that journalist Liam Scott shared on X. Here's what to know about CECOT: What CECOT is Zoom out: CECOT, also known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, is a mega-prison that has played a key role in El Salvador's crime crackdown under President Nayib Bukele. Bukele in 2022 ordered the creation of the prison, which opened in the town of Tecoluca in 2023, as part of his efforts to quell gang violence. The facility is especially large, with the capacity for 40,000 incarcerated people at a time. Each cell houses 65–70 people. Zoom in: Human rights organizations have warned about abuse against those incarcerated in CECOT. Violations include "arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, and significant due process violations," per a 2022 joint report from Human Rights Watch and Cristosal. "In addition, the circumstances of many deaths in custody during the state of emergency suggest state responsibility for those deaths." Venezuelan people deported by the Trump administration this year described being beaten and berated in CECOT, according to ProPublica. CECOT prisoners are not allowed visitors, are not permitted outdoors and do not have access to rehabilitation programs. Gustavo Villatoro, the government's minister for justice and peace, has said this is by design. "They are never going to return to the communities, the neighborhoods, the barrios, the cities of our beloved El Salvador," he said in 2023, as 57,000 people awaited formal charges or trials. What they found: The U.S. government knew that a vast majority of the Venezuelans it deported had not been convicted of any crime in the U.S, ProPublica reported in May. Government data showed that of the 32 men with convictions, only six were for violent crimes, per ProPublica. In response to that reporting, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the publication, without citing evidence, that the deportees were "terrorists, human rights abusers, gang members and more — they just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S."The Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to house migrants in CECOT.By the numbers: Cristosal reported in March 2024 that 110,000 people were imprisoned in El Salvador, including those awaiting trial. That's more than double the 36,000 incarcerated people that the government had reported in April 2021. Cristosal reported last year that between 2022 and 2024, at least 261 people had died in El Salvador's prisons during the gang crackdown. The Trump administration's CECOT deportations Catch up quick: The Trump administration in March sent 280 people to CECOT. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — for what was then the fourth time in history — claiming that the gang Tren de Aragua was part of the Venezuelan government and was invading the U.S. Civil liberties groups attacked the move, as the deportations came with little to no due process. They argued that the United States is not at war and, therefore, cannot invoke that law.Trump also threatened to send U.S. citizens to CECOT.Reality check: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it did not believe Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was directing the gang, per an April 7 memo obtained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. U.S. intelligence also undercut the Trump administration's claims about the gang's power and influence in the U.S. Three-fourths of the Venezuelan migrants flown from Texas to CECOT had no apparent criminal record, a CBS News 60 Minutes report from April found.The people sent to CECOT included "long-time residents with U.S. citizen spouses and children, people who recently arrived, and people in the middle of immigration court proceedings on the path to getting asylum or other relief," according to the National Immigration Law Center. In one case, the Trump administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was released from ICE custody this month following a federal judge's order.Court challenges to deportations What we're watching: A federal appeals court in September blocked the administration from using that law to quickly deport the migrants. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said at the time that it would grant a preliminary injunction "to prevent removal because we find no invasion or predatory incursion" had occurred. The administration was granted a hearing before the full appeals court, which is scheduled for next month.