GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump mentioned Tuesday that he was once exploring whether or not he can transfer ahead with El Salvador’s be offering to simply accept and prison violent American criminals within the “most severe cases” whilst he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio each say it raises transparent criminal problems.
Rubio reached an strange settlement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele an afternoon previous that the Central American nation would settle for U.S. deportees of any nationality, together with Americans and criminal citizens who’re imprisoned for violent crimes.
“I’m just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Trump instructed journalists within the Oval Workplace. “I don’t know if we do or not, we’re looking at that right now.”
Rubio famous that it was once “a very generous offer. No one’s ever made an offer like that — and to outsource, at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the media all through a joint information convention with Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves on the presidential palace in San Jose, Costa Rica on February 4, 2025. (Photograph by way of MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/Pool AP/AFP by the use of Getty Photographs)
MARK SCHIEFELBEIN by the use of Getty Photographs
Rubio mentioned immigration with Chaves — a Trump management precedence — as The united states’s most sensible diplomat additionally faces primary upheaval on the U.S. Company for World Construction that has left many on the assist company and the State Division apprehensive for his or her jobs.
Whilst Rubio has been on a five-country discuss with in Central The united states this week, USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers had been blocked from its Washington headquarters Monday after Elon Musk, who’s working a budget-slashing Division of Executive Potency, introduced Trump had agreed with him to close the help company.
Hundreds of USAID workers already have been laid off and methods international close down after Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on international help after taking place of business. Rubio later presented a waiver for life-saving methods, however confusion over what’s exempt from stop-work orders — and concern of dropping U.S. assist completely — continues to be freezing assist and construction paintings globally.
“I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization,” he instructed journalists. “Or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point.”
He additionally mentioned he has “long supported foreign aid. I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity.” He famous that each greenback the U.S. spends should advance its nationwide pastime.
Amid the turmoil again house, Rubio and Chaves spoke of immigration and safety demanding situations that Costa Rica faces because it has grow to be now not only a transit nation for migrants headed to the U.S. but in addition a vacation spot as 1000’s of Nicaraguans since that nation cracked down on opposition beginning in 2018.
Costa Rica additionally has struggled in opposition to hovering drug-related violence all through the previous two years. “We also understand that we need to strengthen our fight against international organized crime,” Chaves mentioned, including that Rubio had presented to proceed U.S. make stronger via waivers to permit that international help to proceed flowing.
After his assembly with Chaves, Rubio arrived in Guatemala Town to satisfy with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.
An afternoon previous, Rubio met in San Salvador with Bukele, who showed the deportation be offering in a publish on X, announcing El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.”
Bukele mentioned his nation would settle for best “convicted criminals” and would price a price that “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
The State Division describes El Salvador’s overcrowded prisons as “harsh and dangerous.” Its nation knowledge webpage says, “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”
El Salvador has lived beneath a state of emergency since March 2022, when the rustic’s robust boulevard gangs went on a killing rampage. Bukele answered by way of postponing basic rights like get entry to to legal professionals, and government have arrested greater than 83,000 other folks with little to no due procedure.
In 2023, Bukele opened an enormous new jail with capability for 40,000 gang participants and reduce prisoners’ foods to two times an afternoon. Prisoners there don’t obtain visits, and there aren’t any methods getting ready them for reinsertion into society after their sentences and no workshops or tutorial methods.
El Salvador, as soon as one of the crucial unhealthy international locations on the planet, closed final yr with a document low 114 homicides, newfound safety that has propelled Bukele’s hovering recognition within the nation of about 6 million citizens.
Migration has been the highest factor for Rubio on his commute spanning Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. However he was once dogged by way of different adjustments that the Trump management has been making quickly after taking place of business.
Rubio instructed journalists in San Salvador that he was once now the performing administrator of USAID however had delegated that authority so he would now not be working its daily operations. In a letter Rubio despatched to lawmakers that was once got by way of The Related Press, he mentioned the State Division would paintings with Congress “to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices and missions of USAID.”
He mentioned the processes on the company, which has been hit by way of Trump’s freeze on all international help, aren’t smartly coordinated and that “undermines the President’s ability to carry out foreign relations.”
“In consultation with Congress, USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” Rubio wrote.
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AP journalists Christopher Sherman in Mexico Town and Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this document.
