Prisoner’s chilling message exposed.
Chilling aerial footage of prisoners has gone viral.
Prisoner’s conditions detailed.
These detainees, most of whom are Venezuelan, fear they will be deported and sent to a prison they call a death sentence: CECOT in El Salvador.
CECOT – short for Center for Confinement of Terrorism – is widely considered one of the harshest prisons on the planet.
It was launched by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as part of a hardline anti-gang initiative and quickly became a global talking point.
The prison sprawls across 410 acres and boasts the capacity to hold a staggering 40,000 inmates, according to government figures.
Inside, prisoners are confined in massive, windowless cell blocks, often 70 per room, with cement bunks stacked to the ceilings.
Inmates are granted only 30 minutes of hallway exercise per day and are otherwise restricted to their overcrowded, suffocating cells.
There are no outside areas for fresh air or sunlight — just cold concrete and locked steel.
And while CECOT features break rooms and gyms, those amenities are for guards only — prisoners never touch them.
The conditions are so extreme that human rights groups have raised red flags, calling it “dehumanizing” and “medieval.”
So when U.S. immigration authorities started warning detained Venezuelans of possible deportation to El Salvador, panic took hold.
Possibility of deportation debated.
According to families of at least seven detainees, their loved ones have no gang ties — just bad luck, wrong place, wrong time.
Still, deportation proceedings have already begun under a controversial immigration push from U.S. authorities.
The Biden administration recently revived a law not used since World War II to fast-track the deportations.
This law allows for the expedited removal of non-citizens considered a threat — including alleged gang affiliates, whether proven or not.
So far, over 250 alleged criminals have already been deported to CECOT.
Enter the viral eerie plea.
Shocking drone video described.
The footage showed a group of detained migrants spelling out a desperate ‘SOS’ plea with their bodies.
The footage, captured by a Reuters drone, hovered above the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, revealing 31 men aligned on the ground in stark formation.
Inside the mega-prison, footage shows inmates shackled, shirtless, heads shaved, lined up in long human chains.
The visuals sparked global shock — and now, the SOS drone video has poured gasoline on the fire.
Reuters journalists flying the drone over Bluebonnet say they witnessed detainees urgently rushing into formation to form the letters.
The message was clear: send help — fast.
Conversations with inmates confirmed.
One of those on the ground, 19-year-old Jeferson Escalona, managed to speak with Reuters by phone from inside the detention facility.
“They’re making false accusations about me,” he said. “I don’t belong to any gang.”
Escalona is one of dozens of migrants accused of being affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a charge he vehemently denies.
“I fear for my life here. I want to go back to Venezuela,” he added, voice shaking.
Management and Training Corporation, which runs the Bluebonnet facility, said in a statement that detainees are treated humanely.
“All detainees housed at Bluebonnet receive meals based on a menu approved by a certified dietitian,” the spokesperson said.
Prisoners are terrified of the future.
But meals and caloric intake aren’t the point — detainees are terrified of what awaits if they’re forced onto a deportation flight.
Their only defense? A three-letter cry visible only from the sky: S. O. S.
Because for them, El Salvador’s mega-prison isn’t a detention center — it’s a one-way trip to the end.