Is El Salvador's offer to jail US deportees of any nationality feasible or fantasy?

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In an offer that raised eyebrows and red flags across the diplomatic community, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced a willingness to open his country’s infamous Cecot mega-prison to American deportees of any nationality — including U.S. citizens currently jailed domestically for violent crimes. The offer is part of the most “unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio to VOA.

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/HTNwtp35AqFebruary 4, 2025

Befitting such an “unprecedented” offer, there are “obviously legalities involved,” said Rubio at a press conference. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he would accept the offer “in a heartbeat” with the right legal justification. But as many legal experts note, that justification — to say nothing of logistic feasibility — might be more difficult than Rubio and Trump’s cautious enthusiasm suggest.

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“The U.S. government cannot legally deport U.S. citizens,” state-run VOA said, although Bukele is “regarded as a key ally” in the United States’ “regional efforts to address the migration crisis.” While it is illegal for the federal government to deport citizens, “that’s not the end of the story,” said Fordham Law School Professor Jennifer Gordon to NBC News. “There’s a second set of questions about whether the U.S. could transfer a U.S. citizen prisoner to another country to serve their sentence.” Those questions include “constitutional concerns, especially regarding cruel and unusual punishment,” agreed former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick. “Would El Salvador be considered an agent of the United States? What court would have jurisdiction over prisoner disputes?”

While domestic-born citizens “enjoy legal protection from deportation,” those who gained citizenship through the naturalization process can lose those protections, such as in cases where they “used fraud to obtain the citizenship in the first place,” said the BBC. Perhaps more germane to Trump’s immediate deportation agenda, if the government found “you had gang ties and never disclosed them, they could use that as a reason to denaturalize you,” immigration attorney Alex Cuic told the outlet, although he and other experts interviewed by the BBC said they’d “never heard” of such a case.

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Feasibility aside, the proposal may be less about imprisonment than each respective leader’s amassment of power. No matter the “questions about the constitutionality and legality of this deal,” said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue research institute to The New York Times, Bukele’s “absolute power in El Salvador” has in part inspired Trump’s “moving in a similar direction in trying to reduce or eliminate any checks on his power.”

What next?

It is “by no means clear” whether any U.S. citizens will be submitted to El Salvador’s penal system, said the BBC. The country’s “offer of friendship” is “unprecedented,” per Rubio. That’s a sign, said the BBC, that Bukele has “landed firmly in Trump’s favor” despite the diplomatic uncertainty in the region over Trump’s proposed tariffs. Ultimately, Rubio said during a press briefing in Costa Rica on Tuesday, the administration will “have to make a decision” on Bukele’s offer. Regardless of whether this specific offer is acted upon, “there’s a lot of show and a lot of fear” in Bukele’s administration, said Shifter, and that means we should “expect to see a lot more show” between the two administrations.

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