Zinger Key Points
- Pres Bukele will incarcerate convicted criminals from the U.S. in his country, a macabre offer Marco Rubio praised as 'unprecedented.'
- 'No country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this. We are profoundly grateful,” said Rubio.
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El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele says he will incarcerate convicted criminals from the U.S. in his country, a macabre offer that is being praised as an "unprecedented" by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Bukele made the proposal while hosting Rubio at his residence near San Salvador on Monday. He said El Salvador is prepared to imprison convicted Americans, for a small fee of course, in an infamous mega-prison opened a year ago, the largest in Latin America.
"We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system," Bukele wrote on X. "The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable."
Such A Good Friend
"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 Monday.
In addition to loving the U.S., Bukele also loves Bitcoin BTC/USD, making El Salvador the first country to adopt it as its legal tender in 2021.
"He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those with U.S. citizenship and legal residency. No country's ever made an offer of friendship such as this. We are profoundly grateful," gushed Rubio.
Is That Even Legal?
Not at all.
"The U.S. is absolutely prohibited from deporting U.S. citizens, whether they are incarcerated or not," Leti Volpp, a law professor at the University of California/Berkeley who specializes in immigration law, told CNN in an email.
It is unclear whether the U.S. government will take up Bukele's offer though Elon Musk seemed to quite like it. He took to X where he called it a "great idea," so one can assume the plan has a pretty good chance being accepted by President Donald Trump.
Bukele has made El Salvador's prison system — known for rampant human rights violations, violence and overcrowding — part of his anti-crime and anti-gang program. Since March 2022, more than 84,000 people have been arrested, most with no due process, according to Amnesty International.
Why Can't U.S. Prisons House U.S. Citizens?
Apparently, there are too many criminals. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has prioritized arresting and deporting millions of undocumented individuals. His administration also plans to detain 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
CoreCivic, Inc. CXW and the GEO Group, Inc. GEO have historically secured substantial contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) data found that private prison corporations have pocketed billions from ICE detention contracts in the past two decades. But even they are filling to capacity it seems.
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