US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that El Salvador's president has offered to accept deportees from the US of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States, the AP reports. President Nayib Bukele "has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world," Rubio said after meeting with Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador for several hours. "We can send them and he will put them in his jails," Rubio said of migrants of all nationalities detained in the United States. "And, he's also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they're US citizens or legal residents."
Rubio was visiting El Salvador to press a friendly government to do more to meet US President Trump's demands for a major crackdown on immigration. Bukele confirmed the offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has "offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system." He said his country would accept only "convicted criminals" and would charge a fee that "would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable." Elon Musk, the billionaire working with Trump to remake the federal government, responded on his X platform, "Great idea!!"
After Rubio spoke, a US official said the Trump administration had no current plans to try to deport American citizens, but said Bukele's offer was significant. The US government cannot deport American citizens and such a move would be met with significant legal challenges. The State Department describes El Salvador's overcrowded prisons as "harsh and dangerous." On its current country information webpage it says, "In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent."
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