US homeland security secretary Noem speaking to the press as prisoners look on during her tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in March. — Reuters
THE image of Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, posing in front of a cage filled with men shocked me. In late March, Noem travelled to El Salvador to visit the maximum-security prison to which more than 200 men had been sent by the United States.
In the video of the visit, the men had shaved heads. Most are shirtless and wearing identical white shorts. Some of them stood facing the iron bars through which they were being filmed; others sat on bunks arranged in three levels.
