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"Deliberately inflicting serious physical pain on an individual" seems like a good, no-frills definition that avoids relativistic semantic creep where any less-than-maximally-homely prison can be called a "torture prison". I am not trying to play language games here, I am talking about the thing where CECOT detainees are allegedly beaten to the point of injury on a regular basis - not even as a punitive measure for specific documented misbehavior within the prison, but at the whim of the prison staff, including an hour-long beating meted out to all newcomers. You don't have to be a Scandinavian hyper-altruist to think that this is barbarous conduct that the US should on no account be condoning, let alone subsidizing.
(I'm not a fan of corporal punishment as it exists in Singapore, but that's still a different story. Caning over there is an actual judicial sentence, carried out in an orderly, controlled way with proper healthcare provided to the convict afterwards. This may not be our civilization, but it's recognizably a civilized process with limited scope. And even then, I still think the US paying Singapore to cane people would be a step too far.)
If you want to argue that the reports of the beatings etc. at CECOT are fabricated, well, color me skeptical, but that's a factual disagreement I can live with. If the reports are accurate, however, I don't think there's anything hyperbolic about calling it a "torture prison".
Well, tough. Where was the famous Trump bravado then? The principled thing to do in the face of such an unreasonable demand, IMO, was clearly to call Maduro's bluff and just fly them to Venezuela anyway. If Venezuelan authorities don't want to take them into custody, just set'em loose outside the airport. If my neighbor's aggressive dog hops over the fence and starts causing property damage in my yard, it's not actually up to him whether I toss the dog back over to his side of the fence. That's just… ridiculous. Particularly if I'm a zillion times stronger and wealthier and influential than said neighbor. (It'd certainly take something more than an Official Refusal from him for me to even consider paying out of my own pocket to place the dog into the custody of some third party, never mind whether that third party would abuse the dog or not.)
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