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El Salvador President Agrees To Accept Criminals From U.S. For Fee

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President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador offered on Monday to -- for a fee -- jail undocumented immigrants from any country who are deported from the United States. Bukele said that he would also take any convicted U.S. criminals as well, a move that won praise from Secretary of State Marco Rubio despite questions about whether it is legal or even possible, the New York Times reports. "We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Mr. Bukele wrote on X, noting that payments from the United States would support his correctional system. “The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.” After meeting with Bukele on Monday, Rubio said that he had briefed President Trump on the offer, which he described as unprecedented. The secretary said Bukele had offered to also accept convicted criminals who are currently serving their sentences in the United States, “even if they are U.S. citizens or legal residents.”


Despite the sweeping scope of the offer, which Mr. Rubio described as “an act of extraordinary friendship,” deporting U.S. citizens would fly in the face of protections that make it illegal in all but the rarest of cases. While details of the plan are not yet known, it is another example of how the Trump administration is quickly driving home the point to governments in the region that they are either allies or enemies based on their willingness to support him, especially on illegal migration, fentanyl trafficking and restricting Chinese influence. Bukele rose to power in 2019 on a promise to rid his country of drugs and gangs and has since earned adulation across Latin America for bringing down crime in his country. At the same time, he has used emergency powers to order mass arrests that critics say have trampled human rights and the rule of law, ensnaring thousands of innocent people. Bukele said Monday that criminals deported by the United States would go to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a prison built to house 40,000 people. Yet human rights groups have documented extreme overcrowding in El Salvador’s prisons and reports of torture by guards.

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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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