The State Department said that multiple agreements were agreed on to fight the waves of illegal mass migration destabilizing the region.
President Nayib Bukele has agreed to accept deported criminal illegal immigrants from the United States of any nationality, in what he called the “most unprecedented” migratory agreement in the world.
At a signing ceremony for a civil nuclear agreement with El Salvador’s foreign minister, Rubio said that Bukele has offered his “full cooperation” in U.S. illegal immigrant deportation efforts, including agreeing to take in “dangerous American criminals” with U.S. citizenship.
He did not specify which offenses would warrant the transfer of convicted U.S. citizens to the Central American nation but said that further details on the agreement would be forthcoming.
Rubio said that Bukele has also agreed to accept the deportation of El Salvador’s citizens who illegally entered the United States and criminal illegal immigrants of any nationality, including members of Latin American gangs such as El Salvador’s MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
The state secretary hailed Bukele’s offer to house deported criminal illegal immigrants from the United States as “an act of extraordinary friendship to our country” and said he had spoken with President Donald Trump about it.
“No country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this,” Rubio told reporters, according to a transcript issued by the State Department. “We are just profoundly grateful.”
Bukele confirmed in a statement that he agreed to house U.S. criminal deportees in El Salvador’s “mega-prison” in exchange for an unspecified fee from the United States.
“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele stated on the social media platform X.
The El Salvadorian president said the fee would be “relatively low for the U.S.” but “significant” enough to help make his nation’s prison system sustainable.
The agreement was reached during a Feb. 3 meeting between Rubio and Bukele, which the U.S. State Department described as “tremendously successful” for both sides.
