The United States government agreed to pay $4.76 million to El Salvador in exchange for receiving more than 200 deported migrants, according to court documents, which detail demands that these funds not be used on legal advice to asylum seekers in the United States, among other conditions.

The document is an official letter from the United States Department of State to the Government of El Salvador, dated March 22, 2025, in which the granting of $4.76 million is formalized exclusively for penitentiary and logistical support for the detention of these migrants, mostly Venezuelans, at the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), notorious for its reported human rights abuses.

According to the letter, the agreement does not create obligations under international law, so any differences will be resolved only through direct diplomatic consultations between the two governments.

“The correspondence between the U.S. State Department and El Salvador confirms what we have long suspected: the Trump-Vance administration did nothing to meaningfully ensure that missing persons from the U.S. to the infamous Salvadoran prison CECOT would be protected from torture, indefinite confinement, or other abuses,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward.

In a statement, Perryman insisted that “the agreement did, however, make efforts to ensure that the funds the U.S. provided to El Salvador would not be used to provide reproductive health care or assist asylum seekers.” to access resources and advice."