US White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a press conference that Donald Trump is exploring deporting U.S. citizens to El Salvador prisons known for their alleged human rights abuses.
A journalist asked Leavitt regarding Trump over the last weekend, saying he would be willing to deport US citizens to the infamous Salvadoran prisons with the cooperation of that Central American country’s president, Nayib Bukele, who will meet his American counterpart on Monday.
Leavitt confirmed that Trump has discussed the possibility privately and publicly and that the idea is aimed at “heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly. These are violent, repeat offenders on American streets.”
On Sunday, aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters, “I love” the idea of sending American inmates to El Salvador prisons.
“If he [Bukele] would take them, I’d be honored to give them. I don’t know what the law says on that, but I can’t imagine the law would say anything different. If they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I’m all for it,” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks are in response to Bukele, who, during a meeting in early February with US Secretary Marco Rubio, offered to house in its prisons “any dangerous criminals who are US citizens or legal residents.”
Struggling to meet Trump’s deportation goals
Despite Trump’s massive efforts to deport illegal immigrants and legal immigrants convicted of crimes, whether legal or not, relevant officials have struggled to meet the president’s enforcement goals.
According to a The New York Times report, “at least 27,000 people were deported in the six weeks after Trump took office, a pace slower than under Mr. Biden.”
The report adds that following an early surge in arrests, more people are sitting in immigrant detention facilities, mainly because deportations have been bogged down because they are done via flights to several countries, including Egypt, Haiti, and El Salvador.
Biden’s administration mostly deported immigrants in buses across the Mexican border, which is cheaper and faster, the NYT report added.
