OAN Staff James Meyers
10:34 AM – Tuesday, February 4, 2025
El Salvador has agreed with the United States to take in violent U.S. criminals, who are currently in jails and accept deportees of any nationality.
The Monday announcement came after the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele during his visit to the nation.
Rubio said the Salvadoran president had “agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”
The former Florida Senator said that, in addition to taking deportees, El Salvador had “also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentence in the United States even though they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents.”
He made the announcement when he was visiting El Salvador. He went to the country to help push their government to help meet Trump administration demands for cracking down on immigration.
“President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully.”
Additionally, Bukele promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
“And in an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, President Bukele offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals, including U.S. citizens and legal residents,” Bruce added.
Bruce called it a “tremendously successful meeting that will make both countries stronger, safer, and more prosperous.”
However, it is unclear whether the U.S. government will take up the offer as there are questions around the legality of such moves. Any effort by the Trump administration to deport incarcerated U.S. nationals to another country would face significant legal pushback.
El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, commonly referred to as CECOT, is the country’s largest and newest prison, with a maximum capacity of 40,000 inmates.
“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he added.
Additionally, the State Department’s travel advisory for El Salvador also warned that those imprisoned in the country face “harsh” prison conditions, and zero access to due process.
“Overcrowding constitutes a serious threat to prisoners’ health and lives,” the advisory said. “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”
Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order in January specifically naming MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, citing their “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally” as threats to “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”
The orders also included a recommendation that the State Department start the process of designating Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization.
Last Friday, the U.S. special envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone alluded to an agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador, saying Tren de Aragua members “will want to go back to Venezuela rather than having to share the prison with the Salvadorean gangs like MS-13. It’s part of what we want to discuss and how President Bukele can help us.”
This comes after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that they would push ahead with a massive round of border security measures after crisis talks with President Donald Trump on Monday.
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