Rubio Says El Salvador Will Accept U.S. Deportees From Any Nation, Including Americans
HuffPost
El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.
President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said at a signing ceremony for an unrelated civil nuclear agreement with El Salvador’s foreign minister.
“He’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentence in the United States even though they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents,” Rubio said. He had just met with Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador for several hours.
After Rubio spoke, a U.S. official said the Trump administration had no current plans to try to deport American citizens, but said Bukele’s offer was significant. The U.S. government cannot deport American citizens and such a move would be met with significant legal challenges.
Rubio was visiting El Salvador to press a friendly government to do more to meet Trump administration demands for a major crackdown on immigration amid turmoil in Washington over the status of the government’s main foreign development agency.