U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the offer had been conveyed to President Donald Trump.
The United States is considering the president of El Salvador’s offer to house criminals of any nationality in the Central American country’s jails, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Feb. 4.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele recently told U.S. officials his country would accept criminals of any nationality. “We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele said in a post on the social media platform X.
Rubio said the offer was made by Bukele and had been conveyed to President Donald Trump.
“Obviously, we’ll have to study it on our end. There are obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution; we have all sorts of things,” Rubio said on Feb. 4.
Rubio first disclosed the offer on Monday.
“It’s a very generous offer to outsource, at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States,” Rubio told reporters on Tuesday, speaking in Costa Rica. “Obviously, the administration will have to make a decision, But I raised it yesterday because it’s an incredible offer, an unprecedented one.”
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Bukele’s commitment to take criminals into El Salvador’s prison system covers illegal immigrants, U.S. citizens, and legal permanent residents, U.S. officials say. El Salvador, if an agreement is reached, would be paid to keep the criminals in El Salvador prisons.
“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” Bukele wrote on X.
One concern surrounding the proposal is its constitutionality when it comes to criminals who are U.S. citizens.
The U.S. Constitution provides protections for citizens. Courts have ruled that Americans cannot be stripped of their citizenship for committing crimes, meaning they cannot be deported, although some rulings have held that people who are naturalized can lose their citizenship if they’ve been found to illegally procure the naturalization.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, the Trump administration has ramped up the number of illegal immigrants the United States deports to Latin America, including using military planes for repatriation flights.
Trump told a conference in Miami in January: “If they’ve been arrested many, many times, they’re repeat offenders by many numbers, I want them out of our country.”
Some U.S. lawmakers said El Salvador’s proposal was a great idea.
“El Salvador is not as nice to violent criminals as we are in the United States,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote on X.
Elon Musk, the businessman who is serving as a special U.S. government employee and leading the advisory body Department of Government Efficiency, also expressed support for the proposal.
Reuters contributed to this report.
