After deporting foreign passport holders to the notorious Central American prison, the president suggests that US citizens could continue.
The United States hopes to start deporting criminals who maintain US passports to El Salvador, said President Donald Trump.
Trump told reporters while welcoming the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to the White House on Monday that he would like to send violent “local criminals” to be imprisoned under an agreement with the government of the country of Central America.
The comments occurred in the middle of the ongoing dispute on the unfair deportation of a migrant to the notorious prison of El Salvador.
Trump said he would only continue with the idea if his administration decided that it was legal.
“We always have to obey the laws, we also have homemade Soilrown criminals that push people to the subway, who hit the old ladies on the back of the head with a baseball batnel when they do not look, which are absolute monsters.
“I would like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you will have to look at the laws about it.”
Trump told journalists last week that he “loved” the idea, after Bukele said his country was open to house US prisoners.
The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later confirmed that the proposal was on the table, saying that Trump “had simply floated” the idea.
‘Build more prisons’
The American leader made the comments as the controversy about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran who lived in Maryland with his family and was granted protection against deportation in 2019 before being sent to Cecot.
The United States Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate its return. However, the administration has said that Garcia’s fate depends on El Salvador and has tried to maintain that he is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, despite the lack of evidence or any conviction.
On Monday, Bukele told Trump that he would not return to Garcia or release him in El Salvador. Trump said he was not interested in asking Garcia to be released.
“Local criminals are the next ones,” said the president of the United States to Bukele. “I said that the homemade are the following, local crazy people. You have to build about five more places.”