Trump says he’s exploring whether he can send jailed U.S. criminals to other countries
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SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — President Trump said Tuesday that he was exploring whether he can move forward with El Salvador’s offer to accept and jail violent American criminals in the “most severe cases” even as he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say it raises clear legal issues.
Rubio reached an unusual agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a day earlier that the Central American country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.
“I’m just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I don’t know if we do or not; we’re looking at that right now.”
Hours earlier at a news conference in Costa Rica’s capital, San José, with President Rodrigo Chaves, Rubio said there were “obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution.”
But, Rubio added, “it’s a very generous offer. 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.”
The State Department describes El Salvador’s overcrowded prisons as “harsh and dangerous.” Its country information webpage says: “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”
Rubio and Chaves discussed immigration — a Trump administration priority — as America’s top diplomat also faces major upheaval at the U.S. Agency for International Development that has left many at the aid agency and the State Department fearful for their jobs.
While Rubio has been on a five-country visit in Central America this week, USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers were blocked from its Washington headquarters Monday after Elon Musk, who is running a budget-slashing advisory panel known as the Department of Government Efficiency, announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the aid agency.
Rubio has to balance aggressive Trump policies with Latin America’s willingness to cooperate. The Panama Canal will be contentious.
Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down after Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance. Rubio later offered a waiver for lifesaving programs, but confusion over what is exempt from stop-work orders — and fear of losing U.S. aid permanently — is still freezing aid and development work globally.
“I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a for waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization,” Rubio told reporters. “Or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point.”
In its first two weeks, President Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
He also said he has “long supported foreign aid. I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity.” He emphasized that every dollar the U.S. spends must advance its national interest.
One program hit is an HIV/AIDS program started by Republican President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 20 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. Aid contractors spoke of millions of dollars in medication and other goods stuck in port that they were forbidden to deliver.
Amid the turmoil back home, Rubio and Chaves spoke of immigration and security challenges that Costa Rica faces as it has become not just a transit country for migrants headed to the U.S. but also a destination for thousands of Nicaraguans since that country cracked down on opposition starting in 2018. Chaves said Rubio had offered to continue U.S. support through waivers to allow foreign assistance to continue.
After his meeting with Chaves, Rubio arrived in Guatemala City to meet with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.
The day before, Rubio met in San Salvador with Bukele, who confirmed the deportation offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.”
Bukele said his country would accept only “convicted criminals” and would charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
El Salvador has lived under a state of emergency since March 2022, when the country’s powerful street gangs went on a killing rampage. Bukele responded by suspending fundamental rights such as access to lawyers, and authorities have arrested more than 83,000 people with little to no due process.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said El Salvador’s president will accept deportees of any nationality, including violent American criminals imprisoned in U.S.
In 2023, Bukele opened a massive new prison with capacity for 40,000 gang members and cut prisoners’ meals to twice a day. Prisoners there do not receive visits, and there are no programs preparing them for reinsertion into society after their sentences and no workshops or educational programs.
El Salvador, once one of the most dangerous countries in the world, closed last year with a record low 114 homicides, according to its government. The newfound security has propelled Bukele’s popularity in the country of about 6 million residents.
Migration has been the top issue for Rubio on his trip spanning Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. But he was dogged by other changes that the Trump administration has been making soon after taking office.
El Salvador’s evangelical churches rehabilitated ex-gang members. The country’s crackdown on L.A.-born gangs like MS-13 emptied programs and filled prisons.
Rubio told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the acting administrator of USAID but had delegated that authority so he would not be running its day-to-day operations.
In a letter Rubio sent to lawmakers that was obtained by the Associated Press, he said the State Department would work with Congress “to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices and missions of USAID.”
He said the processes at the agency, which has been hit by Trump’s freeze on all foreign assistance, are not well coordinated and that “undermines the President’s ability to carry out foreign relations.”
“In consultation with Congress, USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” Rubio wrote.
Lee writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.
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