By Simon Lewis
SAN JOSE (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday called an offer by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to house dangerous criminals from the United States in his country’s jails “very generous” and said the Trump administration would have to study it.
Rubio made the comment at a news conference in Costa Rica after meeting Bukele in El Salvador on Monday. Bukele said in a post on X that he had offered the U.S. “the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system”.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested last month that the U.S. could pay foreign countries “a very small fee” to imprison Americans who are repeat criminal offenders, billing the idea as a cost-saving measure.
Rubio was asked about Bukele’s offer at a joint news conference with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves and called it “an incredible offer, an unprecedented one.”
“Obviously, we’ll have to study it on our end; there are obviously legalities involved. We have a constitution, we have all sorts of things, but it’s a very generous offer,” he said.
“No one’s ever made an offer like that, and to outsource, at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States. But obviously the administration will have to make a decision.”
The U.S. Constitution provides protections for citizens. Courts have ruled that Americans cannot be stripped of their citizenship for committing crimes, meaning they cannot be deported.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, the Trump administration has stepped up the number of migrants the U.S. deports to Latin America, including using military planes for repatriation flights.
In addressing the issue of sending American prisoners overseas while speaking at a Republican conference in Miami last month, Trump said: “If they’ve been arrested many, many times, they’re repeat offenders by many numbers, I want them out of our country.”
On his X platform on Monday night, Elon Musk, the billionaire heading Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government and cut costs, called Bukele’s proposal a “Great idea!!”
(Reporting by Simon Lewis, David Brunnstrom and Susan Heavey; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
