Rubio says El Salvador’s offer to jail violent American criminals faces ‘legalities’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, Frank Alexis Abrego, Panama's Minister of Public Security, centre, and Panama's Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha, watch as people board a repatriation flight bound for Colombia at Albrook Airport in Panama City, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that El Salvador’s offer to accept and jail violent American criminals raises clear legal issues but described it as “very generous” and said President Donald Trump would make a decision on whether to move forward with it.

Rubio reached an unusual agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a day earlier that the Central American country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.

“There are obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution,” Rubio said at a news conference Tuesday in San Jose with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves. “But it’s 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. But obviously, the administration will have to make a decision.”

Rubio discussed immigration with Chaves -- a Trump administration priority -- as America’s top diplomat also faces major upheaval at the U.S. Agency for International Development that has left many at the aid agency and the State Department fearful for their jobs.

While Rubio has been on a five-country visit in Central America this week, USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers were blocked from its Washington headquarters Monday after Elon Musk, who is running a budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the aid agency.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down after Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance after taking office. Rubio later offered a waiver for life-saving programs, but confusion over what is exempt from stop-work orders -- and fear of losing U.S. aid permanently -- is still freezing aid and development work 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 told reporters. “Or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point.”

He also said he has “long supported foreign aid. I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity.” He noted that every dollar the U.S. spends must advance its national interest.

One program hit is an HIV/AIDS program started by Republican President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 20 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. Aid contractors spoke of millions of dollars in medication and other goods stuck in port that they were forbidden to deliver.

Amid the turmoil back home, Rubio met in San Salvador with Bukele, who confirmed the deportation offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.”

Bukele said his country would accept only “convicted criminals” and would charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”

The State Department describes El Salvador’s overcrowded prisons as “harsh and dangerous.” Its country information webpage says, “In many facilities, provisions for sanitation, potable water, ventilation, temperature control, and lighting are inadequate or nonexistent.”

El Salvador has lived under a state of emergency since March 2022, when the country’s powerful street gangs went on a killing rampage. Bukele responded by suspending fundamental rights like access to lawyers, and authorities have arrested more than 83,000 people with little to no due process.

In 2023, Bukele opened a massive new prison with capacity for 40,000 gang members and cut prisoners' meals to twice a day. Prisoners there do not receive visits, and there are no programs preparing them for reinsertion into society after their sentences and no workshops or educational programs.

El Salvador, once one of the most dangerous countries in the world, closed last year with a record low 114 homicides, a newfound security that has propelled Bukele’s soaring popularity in the country of about 6 million residents.

Migration has been the top issue for Rubio on his trip spanning Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. But he was dogged by other changes that the Trump administration has been making soon after taking office.

Rubio told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the acting administrator of USAID but had delegated that authority so he would not be running its day-to-day operations.

In a letter Rubio sent to lawmakers that was obtained by The Associated Press, he said the State Department would work with Congress “to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices and missions of USAID.”

He said the processes at the agency, which has been hit by Trump’s freeze on all foreign assistance, are not well 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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By Matthew Lee

AP reporters Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.