By Canadian Press

Rubio says El Salvador’s offer to jail violent American criminals faces ‘legalities’

Feb 4, 2025 | 10:27 AM

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio says “there are obviously legalities involved” in Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s offer to accept and jail violent American criminals.

Rubio called it “a very generous offer” and said that it would allow the U.S. to outsource the cost of some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. But he noted that “we have a Constitution” and the Trump administration “will have to make a decision.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will press the Trump administration’s priority of cracking down on immigration when he meets Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves on Tuesday, a day after reaching an unusual agreement with El Salvador’s leader to accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including violent American criminals.

Rubio met with staffers at the U.S. embassy in San Jose as he faces major upheaval at the U.S. Agency for International Development that has left many at the aid agency and the State Department uneasy and fearful for their jobs.

America’s top diplomat is expected to get questions later at a news conference with Chaves about the turmoil at USAID as well as the offer from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept migrant deportees of all nationalities from the United States as well as violent American citizens imprisoned in the U.S.

“We can send them, and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said Monday of Bukele’s offer to accept migrants of all nationalities detained in the U.S. “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 U.S. citizens or legal residents.”

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.” He 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.”

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.”

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 like access to lawyers, and authorities have arrested more than 83,000 people with little to no due process.

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, a newfound security that has propelled Bukele’s soaring popularity in the country of about 6 million residents.

Migration has been the top issue for Rubio’s five-nation Central American tour spanning Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic following stops in Panama and El Salvador.

While Rubio was out of the U.S. this week, USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers were blocked from its Washington headquarters Monday after Elon Musk, which is running a budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the aid agency.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down. 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.

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AP reporters Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.

Matthew Lee, The Associated Press