El Salvador's president has offered to "house in his jails dangerous American criminals" and accept deportees of any nationality, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday night.

Why it matters: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's offer is "the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world," per remarks by Rubio that the State Department released.

Rubio made the announcement that was criticized by human rights groups while visiting El Salvador as part of a wider trip across Latin America to push for President Trump's "America First" policy, which includes plans for large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Driving the news: Rubio called Bukele's offer "an act of extraordinary friendship" and said it would include accepting for deportation "any criminal from any nationality," even members of the international criminal gangs MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, which Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

Among those Bukele has offered to house in Salvadoran jails are "dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residents."
Rubio added: "No country's ever made an offer of friendship such as this."
Zoom in: Bukele said on X he'd offered the U.S. the "opportunity to outsource part of its prison system."

He added: "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 the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable."
The big picture: Bukele's harsh anti-gang measures saw violent crime fall in El Salvador, but critics have said the results have been at the expense of civil rights and incarceration rates have soared.

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/04/rubio-us-el-salvador-bukele-jail-americans-immigrants