Rubio touts Bukele’s offer to jail U.S. citizens in El Salvador — but it’s mostly illegal
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio answered on Tuesday after he announced that President El Salvadori Nayeb Boucley had offered the acceptance of the deportees from the United States of any nationality, as well as violent American citizens who are currently spending time in American prisons.
“This is an offer made by President Bokley,” said Rubio on Tuesday afternoon, while talking to correspondents in Costa Rica, the third station of the first foreign country. We have a constitution, we have all kinds of things, but it is a very generous offer. “
Rubio said that the administration of President Donald Trump had not made a decision on the offer.
Three legal experts, who spoke with NBC news, raised questions about the legitimacy of these procedures and expected a significant legal recovery on any effort to deport the imprisoned American citizens to another country.
“The United States cannot deport one of its citizens,” said Jennifer Gordon, a professor of law at the Fordam Faculty of Law at Fordam.
“But this is not the end of the story,” she said.
John Fishwick, a former American lawyer in Virginia, said the current laws “would prevent most of the American citizens and population from spending their penalty in El Salvador.”
He said that in the United States, the perpetrator can only be sent to a country where he is a citizen – and this is only with their consent and some crimes that apply in both countries.
“Housing citizens and residents of the prison in a foreign country would raise constitutional concerns, especially with regard to the harsh and unusual punishment … Is El Salvador considered the Undersecretary of the United States? What is the court that will have a jurisdiction over prisoners’ disputes?”
Rubio met with an agent in El Salvador on Monday as part of his ongoing journey across Latin America, where he presses government leaders in the region to do more to comply with Trump’s policy priorities, including the Immigration Campaign.
Discuss a set of deals. Rubio said that the most controversial thing is the offer of a agent “to house his prisons in its dangerous prisons in the American criminals held in our country, including the American citizenship and the legal population.”
“Unusual gesture”
In a post on xRubio described Bokley’s offer as “an unprecedented unusual gesture by any country.”
“A very fruitful meeting with the President of El Salvadori nayibbukele“The post Read.” His commitment to accepting criminals and imprisoning them from any country, including violent gangs such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, will make America safer. “
“Can the United States be deported by al -Salvadorians convicted of crimes to El Salvador? Yes. Can El Salvador keep these people in his prisons? Yes. But for American citizens, this is not a matter of migration. It is a question of prison policy.”
NBC News contacted the Ministry of Justice and the Federal Prison Office to comment, but she did not get an immediate response.
In another After xBokley explained that El Salvador “is ready to take only convicted criminals (including American citizens convicted) in our massive prison (CECOT) for a fee.”
“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to use external sources of its prison system,” says Boukhli Post. “The drawings will be relatively low for the United States, but they are important to us, which makes the entire prison system sustainable.”
Terrorism Cabinet Center, or Cecot, as Bukele, is the Salvadori prison that was built to house 40,000 people. Severe overcrowding and torture were documented by the guards in this prison by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Bukele’s office did not respond to the NBC news request to comment and more details about the offer.
After meeting with Bukele on Monday, Rubio said he had briefed Trump on this offer, along another couple.
According to the Rubio Office, Bukele also agreed to continue accepting Al -Salvadorian citizens who have been deported from the United States, which is already done by El Salvador.
The agent of acceptance of foreign nationals from other countries was also arrested in the United States for violating American immigration laws.
Salvador has already signed An agreement in 2019Known as the “Third Country A safe” deal, to receive non-Salvadorians detained in the United States-but it has never been implemented because of the roaming epidemic.
Kathleen Bush Joseph, a policy analyst at the Institute of Policy for Migration, said that those who are not registered and people who have been granted protection that prevents the United States from deporting them to a country where they may face persecution or torture “they can be sent to a third country as long as this is not the country where they will face persecution or torture.” .
But with the Trump administration implementing policies that allow officials to do so Except the ordinary immigration law and accelerate the deportation Bush Joseph added that from anyone who has an order to remove, it may become difficult for non -citizens to challenge their deportation, even if they are sent to a country where they are not not present.
Gordon said that she will expect constitutional challenges and abandonment if there are attempts to deport American citizens.
