The Trump administration seems eager on the thought of sending convicted immigrants and U.S. residents to El Salvadoran prisons.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X Tuesday morning that he had a “very productive meeting” with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele relating to his dedication to “accept and incarcerate criminals from any country including” these from “gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.”
“In an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, President Bukele offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals, including US citizens and legal residents,” he wrote.
Rubio’s assembly comes after Bukele prolonged to President Donald Trump a suggestion to deal with convicted immigrants and U.S. residents in his newly constructed detention middle for a “relatively low” payment.
“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 wrote on X Monday.
CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle, has a most capability of 40,000. Critics have already flagged the jail for civil rights abuses, citing strict management and isolation of people who find themselves incarcerated.
Bukele was elected president in 2022 and has been credited with decreasing gang violence and restoring security in El Salvador. However his success hinges on the mass incarceration of greater than 81,000 folks.
Human rights teams have documented excessive overcrowding and torture in El Salvador’s prisons, and entry to meals, ingesting water, and well being care is usually nonexistent.
Trump tried to determine the same settlement with El Salvador throughout his first time period when the 2 international locations signed the “safe third country” settlement in 2019. Partially, El Salvador agreed to obtain non-Salvadorians detained in the US, however the deal was by no means applied attributable to COVID-19.
Loads of pink flags have been raised since Trump started his second time period and began implementing his mass deportation efforts—together with his try to finish birthright citizenship.
However immigration specialists have been pointing to the illegality of delivery U.S. residents and immigrants to a different nation.
“The U.S. is absolutely prohibited from deporting U.S. citizens, whether they are incarcerated or not,” Leti Volpp, a regulation professor on the College of California, Berkeley, who focuses on immigration regulation and citizenship idea, informed CNN.
Equally, Trump introduced on Jan. 29 that he’ll home detained immigrants in Guantanamo Bay, the notorious navy jail in Cuba that was used to deal with high-profile terrorists. The jail beforehand housed Haitian immigrants underneath the Bush administration.
The primary group of immigrants was despatched to Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday.
In the meantime, on U.S. soil, sanctuary cities held anti-ICE protests over the weekend, and pro-immigrant companies closed their doorways Monday to honor “Day Without Immigrants.” However in distinction, folks have been arrested for imitating ICE brokers to harass folks of colour.
And regardless of studies about ICE utilizing extreme pressure on senior residents, officers are nonetheless selling deportations on social media.
