El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele released a damning video Thursday that shreds the narrative surrounding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal migrant who claimed he was tortured in Salvadoran prison after being deported by the Trump administration.
Far from the abuse he alleged in court filings, the video shows Abrego Garcia gardening, playing soccer, fishing, watching TV, lifting weights, and laughing with other inmates — all inside El Salvador’s high-security CECOT anti-terrorism prison.
“If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?” Bukele wrote on X. “Why would he gain weight? Why are there no bruises, or even dark circles under his eyes?”
The footage shows Abrego healthy, energetic, and smiling, even during a meeting with U.S. Senator Van Hollen, who Bukele says personally confirmed the man seemed fine.
Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary.
But the man wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight. In fact, photos show he gained weight while in detention. There’s plenty of footage from different days,… pic.twitter.com/PzvLcCNzrK
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 3, 2025
Bukele also torched the media and Western legal system:
“Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary.”
Court filings vs. video proof
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers painted a horrific scene:
-
Claimed he lost 31 pounds in two weeks
-
Said he was frog-marched, kicked, and beaten
-
Alleged psychological torture and sleep deprivation
-
Claimed guards forced inmates to kneel for 9 hours overnight and beat them for collapsing
But the video shows none of that.
It shows Abrego walking upright, engaging in leisure activities, and even relaxing in front of a widescreen TV in his cell.
Bukele said the migrant gained weight, not lost it, and invited the world to see the footage for themselves.
Who is Abrego Garcia?
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported in March 2025 after being arrested in Maryland, where he had been living illegally.
The Trump administration accused him of being an MS-13 gang member, a human trafficker, and a serial domestic abuser.
His wife reported multiple incidents of physical violence, and ICE records show a pattern of serious criminal behavior.
Still, Democrats turned him into a poster child for their opposition to Trump’s mass deportation plan — until now.
CECOT: from feared prison to model security
The CECOT prison has been central to Bukele’s historic crackdown on gangs, which has transformed El Salvador from the murder capital of the world to one of the safest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
-
In 2015: 103 homicides per 100,000 people
-
In 2024: 1.9 homicides per 100,000
-
For comparison: the U.S. had 5.5 per 100,000 in 2023
More than 1% of El Salvador’s population has been detained under Bukele’s emergency order. Human rights groups, predictably, have raised concerns — citing hundreds of deaths in custody and claims of torture.
But Bukele and his supporters say the results speak for themselves: safer streets, destroyed cartels, and MS-13 on life support.
