President Trump said on Tuesday that he was open to an offer by El Salvador’s president to jail convicted criminals, including American citizens, in the Central American nation’s notorious “megaprison.”
“If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Mr. Trump said.
He almost surely does not have the legal right to do it, legal experts say, and any attempt to carry out President Nayib Bukele’s plan would probably be challenged in court.
But Mr. Bukele’s proposal to essentially turn El Salvador into a penal colony for the United States showed how far he is willing to go to define himself as Mr. Trump’s primary ally in a region that the American president has disparaged. And for Mr. Trump, even musing over the proposal signaled his willingness to embrace extreme measures to show he is tough on crime and illegal immigration.
“It’s quite extraordinary and unprecedented and alarming in many ways,” said Michael E. Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue research institute in Washington. “I know a lot of experts have raised questions about the constitutionality and legality of this deal, but Bukele is a leader who has absolute power in El Salvador and it seems Trump seems to be moving in a similar direction in trying to reduce or eliminate any checks on his power.”
Mr. Bukele, who has reshaped his country by cracking down on both gangs and civil liberties, said he would be open to imprisoning the deportees in the Terrorism Confinement Center, a prison built to house 40,000 people that has sparked concern from human rights groups over extreme overcrowding and reports of torture by guards.
Despite questions over its legality, the proposal prompted praise from Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, as well as Elon Musk, the billionaire and powerful Trump adviser who has set about remaking the government. It would also involve jailing for a fee undocumented migrants from any country, not just El Salvador, who had been convicted of crimes.
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