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El Salvador has offered to take in criminals deported from the US, including those with US citizenship, and house them in its mega-jail.
The deal was announced after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele during his visit to the central American nation.
Bukele – whose iron-fist approach to gangs has won him plaudits from voters but been heavily criticised by human rights groups – said he had offered the US “the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system“.
Rubio said the US was “profoundly grateful” to Bukele, adding that “no country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this“.
Rubio told reporters: “He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those with US citizenship and legal residency.”
Referring to two of the region’s most notorious transnational crime gangs, Rubio added that El Salvador would also take in deported migrants and “criminals from any nationality, be the MS-13 or Tren de Aragua“.
Since he came into office in 2019, Bukele has made cracking down on crime his government’s priority.
The newly built maximum-security jail he referred to, Cecot Terrorism Confinement Centre, is at the centre of his drive to lock up and punish the most violent gang members.
The treatment of inmates at Cecot, where scores of inmates are locked up in each windowless cell, has been criticised by rights groups.
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