El Salvador has agreed to house violent criminals from the United States and accept deportees of any nationality under a new agreement with the Trump administration, officials announced on Monday.
The arrangement has drawn criticism from rights groups and legal experts.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the agreement after meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as part of his visit to several Central American countries to advance US migration policies.
“In an act of extraordinary friendship to our country … (El Salvador) has agreed to the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio told reporters.
Under the deal, El Salvador will continue receiving its own deported nationals who entered the US illegally.
Additionally, the country will accept for deportation “any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal from any nationality, be they MS-13 or Tren de Aragua,” Rubio said, referring to two transnational gangs with members from El Salvador and Venezuela.
Bukele also offered to house convicted US criminals in Salvadoran prisons.
“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 posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
Photo: The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)/@nayibbukele on X
It remains unclear whether the US government will accept Bukele’s offer, and legal experts have raised concerns about the feasibility of deporting US citizens to a foreign prison.
Photo: The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)/@nayibbukele on X
The agreement has drawn criticism from rights organizations, with opponents warning that it could violate international migration laws and contribute to democratic backsliding.
Roman Palomares, National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said the deal undermines the rights of migrants.
“LULAC opposes treating deported non-criminal migrants like cattle who can be shuttled from one country to another without regard to their home of origin,” Palomares said in a statement. “These are human beings, and their lives are being destroyed.”
Some analysts have also questioned the legal basis for the agreement.
“It is a bizarre and unprecedented proposal being made potentially between two authoritarian, populist, right-wing leaders seeking a transactional relationship,” said Mneesha Gellman, a professor at Emerson College and expert on international politics. “It’s not rooted in any sort of legal provision and likely violates a number of international laws relating to the rights of migrants.”
Members of El Salvador’s opposition have also condemned the agreement. Manuel Flores, general secretary of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), questioned the implications for the country.
“What are we? Backyards, front yards, or garbage dumps?” Flores said at a press conference.
El Salvador has been under a state of emergency since 2022, which grants security forces broad powers to detain individuals suspected of gang affiliation. Human rights organizations argue that thousands of innocent people have been imprisoned under the policy, contributing to the highest incarceration rate in the world.
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