Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s millennial dictator, has offered to house migrants and “dangerous criminals” deported by the United States in his country’s infamous mega jails, according to Marco Rubio.
Mr Rubio, who is on his first overseas tour as US secretary of state, said this would include deportees of any nationality, including violent American citizens imprisoned in the US.
America’s top diplomat is seeking support from Central American countries for the new Trump administration’s attempts to deport large numbers of migrants.
Mr Rubio met with the president and senior officials at Mr Bukele’s residence on Lake Coatepeque outside the capital for almost three hours, where they agreed to go beyond El Salvador’s acceptance of its own deported citizens and to include migrants of all nationalities detained in the United States.
“Any… illegal immigrant in the United States who’s a dangerous criminal – MS-13, Tren de Aragua [criminal gangs], whatever it may be – he has offered his jails. We can send them and he will put them in his jails,” Mr Rubio said.
“And, he’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States, even though they’re US citizens or legal residents.”
Mr Bukele confirmed the 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”.
The president said his country would accept only “convicted criminals” and would charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable”.
We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.
We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.
The fee would be relatively low for… pic.twitter.com/HTNwtp35Aq
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 4, 2025
Elon Musk, the billionaire working with Mr Trump to remake the federal government, responded on his X platform, “Great idea!!”.
After Mr Rubio spoke, a US official said the Trump administration had no current plans to try to deport American citizens, but said Mr Bukele’s offer was significant. The US government cannot deport American citizens and such a move would be met with significant legal challenges.
As well as smoothing the way for the US to send migrants back to their own countries, Mr Rubio is trying to secure “third country” agreements, in which nations accept citizens of other countries that will not accept deportees.
Cuba and Venezuela, for instance, have frosty relations with the US and have in the past limited the number of deportees they will accept, although Mr Trump says Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s president, has agreed to accept back his country’s citizens.
Similar agreements involving the deportation of migrants have been pushed in Europe, including Britain’s failed Rwanda scheme and Italy’s deal with Albania, which is being challenged in the courts.
But Mr Bukele also offered to go a step further: to house dangerous criminals who are US citizens or legal residents, Mr Rubio said.
It was not immediately clear whether the US would take up that offer. More details of the agreement would be forthcoming, he added.
One of El Salvador’s prisons, a so-called mega prison or “Terrorism Confinement Centre”, has garnered much attention under Mr Bukele. The vast 410-acre complex was opened in 2023 and has the capacity to hold 40,000 inmates. Pictures from inside the prison have shown row-upon-row of tattooed, shaven inmates in cramped conditions, sitting on the floor one behind the other.
The US state department’s website notes that prison conditions in El Salvador are “harsh and dangerous”.
“Overcrowding constitutes a serious threat to prisoners’ health and lives,” the website says. “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”
Mr Bukele is seen by the Trump administration as a key ally in its migration efforts in the region.
The Salvadoran president has launched an unflinching security crackdown in his country, arresting more than 80,000 people, and bringing the number of homicides down sharply.
His policies are credited by Washington with reducing the number of Salvadorans seeking to enter the US illegally.
Since taking office on Jan 20, Mr Trump has stepped up the number of migrants the US deports to Latin America, including using military planes for repatriation flights.
The Trump administration on Monday removed protection against deportation from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the US.
Mr Trump last week said he was expanding a detention facility at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold 30,000 people.
