Special offer: El Salvador's president offers the US a prison for migrants and “criminal” Americans
Kyiv • UNN
El Salvador's president has offered the United States to house its criminals in the Cecot mega-prison for a fee. The proposal includes the detention of both American citizens and illegal migrants from other countries.
El Salvador's President Nayib Buchele has proposed to keep dangerous American and foreign "criminals" sent from the United States in his country's mega-prison.
Transmits to UNN with reference to AFP.
El Salvador's President Nayib Buchele, after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offered to host not only deported migrants but also American "dangerous criminals.
We have offered the United States the opportunity to outsource part of the prison system. We are ready to accept only convicted criminals (including US citizens) in our mega-prison Cecot in exchange for a fee. This fee would be relatively small for the US, but significant for us, and would make our prison system sustainable
Rubio welcomed the offer and said he was "deeply" grateful to Buchele, whose war on gangs has boosted his popularity in El Salvador and elsewhere. After meeting with Buchele on Monday, Rubio said he had informed President Donald Trump of the offer, which he called unprecedented.
Later, the State Department added that Buchele had agreed to accept undocumented immigrants from any country, not just El Salvador, who had been convicted of crimes, including members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.
For reference
Bukelé is highly popular for his state of emergency-based crackdown on gangs, which has seen some 83,000 people, many of them innocent, detained without warrants since 2022, and has been criticized by human rights groups.
Cecot, or Terrorist Detention Center, is a prison opened in El Salvador in 2023. It can hold up to 40 thousand prisoners. As of June 2024, less than 15 thousand people were held at Cecot.