El Salvador offers to house 'American criminals,' deportees: Rubio

El Salvador has offered to house criminals who are American citizens and deportees of other nationalities, according to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio said late Monday that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s offer is “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.” 

The comments came after he met with the country’s leadership.

Rubio traveled to El Salvador, part of his tour through Central America and the Caribbean to drum up support for President Trump’s immigration agenda, which the administration said will include mass deportations. 

“He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residents,” Rubio said Monday, according to the State Department readout. “No country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this.” 

El Salvador will keep accepting Salvadorans who are living in the U.S. illegally, along with international criminal gangs MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, both of which have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by Trump.

“And he’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States, even if they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents,” Rubio said. 

Bukele confirmed the offer on social platform X, calling it an opportunity to “outsource part of its prison system.” 

“We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee,” Bukele wrote Monday night. “The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.” 

The U.S. government doesn’t have the authority to deport American citizens and a move such as this would likely prompt a bevy of legal challenges. 

Since taking office, Bukele has been able to tamp down gang violence in the country, but critics have panned the push, at times, being in violation of civil rights and pointing to conditions at El Salvador’s jails. 

The State Department characterizes El Salvador’s prisons as “harsh and dangerous.”

Rubio also visited Panama earlier this month, following Trump’s proposal to regain control of the Panama Canal.