The Secretary of State for the United States, Marco Rubio, responded to criticism on Tuesday after he announced that Salvadoran President Nayib Bikele had offered to accept the deportees of the United States of any nationality, as well as the violent US citizens who currently They fulfilled time in US prisons.
“That is an offer that President Bukele did. Obviously, we will have to study it for our purpose,” Rubio said Tuesday afternoon while talking to journalists in Costa Rica, the third stop of his first foreign trip as Secretary of State. “Obviously there are legalities involved. We have a Constitution, we have all kinds of things, but it is a very generous offer.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has not yet made a decision on the offer, said Rubio.
Three legal and immigration experts who spoke with NBC News raised questions about the legality of such actions and anticipated great legal rejection for any effort to deport US citizens to another country.
“The United States cannot deport one of its own citizens. Deportation is only for non -citizens,” said Jennifer Gordon, a law professor at the Fordham Law Faculty.
“But that is not the end of the story. There is a second set of questions about whether the United States could transfer to an American citizen prisoner to another country to fulfill its sentence,” he said.
Current laws “would categorically prevent the majority of American citizens and residents to comply with their sentence in El Salvador,” said John Fishwick, former US prosecutor in Virginia.
In the United States, a criminal could only be sent to a country where they are citizens, and that is only with their consent and for certain crimes that apply in both countries, he said.
Fishwick added that “citizens and residents of housing in a prison located in a foreign state would increase constitutional concerns, especially with respect to cruel and unusual punishment … Would the Savior of the United States be considered? What court would have jurisdiction on prisoners’ disputes?
Rubio met with Bukele in El Salvador on Monday as part of his ongoing trip through Latin America while pressing government leaders in the region to do more to align with Trump’s political priorities, including his repression against immigration.
They discussed a variety of offers; The most controversial is Bukele’s offer “to house in his dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of US citizenship and legal residents,” said Rubio.
‘An extraordinary gesture’
In an X publication, Rubio described Bukele’s offer as “an extraordinary gesture never extended by any country.”
“Very productive meeting with Salvadoran president @nayibbukele,” says the publication. “His commitment to accept and imprison criminals from any country, including violent gangs such as MS-13 and Aragua Train, will make the United States safer.”
Gordon de Fordham said: “Can the United States sport saviors convicted for crimes to El Salvador? Yes. Can El Salvador keep those people in their own prisons? Yes. But as for US citizens, it is not an immigration question. It is a penitentiary policy question. ”
NBC News contacted the Department of Justice and the Federal Prison Office to Comment, but did not get an immediate response.
In another publication about X, Bukele clarified that El Salvador is “willing to assume only convicted criminals (including American citizens) in our mega prison (CECOT) in exchange for a rate.”
“We have offered the United States of America to outsource part of its penitentiary system,” says Bukele’s publication. “The rate would be relatively low for the US. But it is important for us, which makes our entire prison system sustainable.”
The terrorism confinement center, or Cecot, as Bukele referred to him, is a saving prison built to house 40,000 people. Extreme overcrowding and torture instances by the guards have been documented in this prison by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Bukele’s office did not respond to a NBC news request for comments and more details about the offer.
After meeting Bukele on Monday, Rubio said he informed Trump about this offer, in a couple of others.
According to Rubio’s office, Bukele also agreed to continue accepting Salvaderes deporteños from the United States, what El Salvador is already doing.
Bukele also offered to accept foreign citizens from other countries arrested in the United States for violating the immigration laws of the United States.
El Salvador had previously signed an agreement in 2019, known as a “third safe country” agreement, to receive non -saviors detained in the United States, but was never implemented due to Covid pandemic.
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Institute of Migration Policy, said that non-citizens and people who have been granted protections that prevent the United States from being the country where they would face persecution or torture ” .
But as the Trump administration implements policies that allow officials to avoid regular immigration law and accelerate the deportations of any person with an elimination order, it can be more difficult for non -citizens to challenge their deportations, even if they are sent to A country where they are not from Bush-Joseph added.
Gordon said he would anticipate constitutional challenges and due process if there are attempts to deport US citizens.
