Kristi Noem visits El Salvador prison where deported Venezuelans are being held

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in El Salvador yesterday to tour the prison where over 200 Venezuelan migrants with alleged gang ties were deported to earlier this month. The Trump administration is currently arguing in federal court that it was justified to deport the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act. CBS News correspondent Lillia Luciano joins me now here in Studio 57 to speak more about this. Lillia, good morning to you. Good morning. You had actually visited this exact prison recently. You'd been working to get there for years because it's so notorious. Help us understand what it's like and why the secretary is there. Well, this tour that Kristi Noem did is not unlike the one we did where they show you how this prison works, how it is designed. It was designed to contain terrorism. And what that means, what the Bukele administration, the Nayib Bukele administration in El Salvador did by creating this prison, was basically creating what I've called a black hole in terms of the lack of communication coming in or out of the prison. Nothing, according to prison officials, has ever been contrabanded inside. The prisoners have never had any kind of riot or attacked the guards because there's so much security. And the most important thing is once you're in there, there's no information that comes in and out. There's no visitors allowed in or out. And so what the government of El Salvador is showing our government is, look, these are the conditions. This is how we assure that gangs are not going to control crime outside. The thing that we've been covering this week is we have been talking to family members and attorneys of some of those Venezuelan men. That prison was designed to contain terrorists. Our government is saying those Venezuelans are terrorists, but are not, or are refusing to share any of the evidence, any of the intelligence that shows that, in fact, that they're gang members. I talked to Tom Holman this week, and he himself acknowledged, I know that some of them might not have committed crimes in the U.S. because he says some of these gang members, they haven't even committed crimes. So I keep asking, why are they inside a prison that was designed for the worst of the worst criminals? And considering it's so intense, you would believe the government is certain that they have committed crimes. It's certain that they have these gang ties. And so we have a lot of questions about what makes them gang members. Well, let's play this. Nome was questioned by reporters about if those who were sent there could ever be returned to the U.S. Let's listen to what she said. You know, we're going to let the courts play out, but we're going to continue to work to make sure that we're getting dangerous criminals out of America. So she's holding the administration's line there, but you've been speaking with relatives of some of the men detained. Help us understand what they claim is the truth when it comes to their ties. Well, you know, family members of the ones that we've heard from and the attorneys we've talked to say, look, they're not gang members. They were picked up or they were or they were detained. The two spouses or partners we talked to said they were detained when they went to an ICE check-in. You know, they showed up for their appointment in the hopes of getting of getting asylum. They surrendered at the border. They followed their process and that because they have tattoos. And here's what I find interesting. In El Salvador, they created this prison to contain the Salvadoran gangs. And what I saw in that prison is you see the men who have the MS-13 tattoo that's very obvious. When it comes to Tren de Aragua, which is the gang that the Trump administration is accusing these Venezuelans of being a part of, there's no real conclusion on what are Tren de Aragua tattoos. It's a different culture gang wise. So in El Salvador, they say, and I interviewed one of those prisoners who told me, you can't get a tattoo if you haven't killed anyone. And El Salvador, they say they're under a state of exception. They're under some kind of something like a martial law where they have lifted or they're not guaranteeing the rights of everybody. They wanted to imprison everybody. And then they say that they have some due process that is not something that really exists there. And we can talk about that later. But that is exactly what's happening to these Venezuelans. No due process, no opportunity to say we're not or share any evidence that they're not gang members and they're being treated like these gang members. So many important questions. We appreciate you having visited there and continuing to report on this. Lilia Luciano, thanks so much. Thanks, Errol.