Opinion Trump administration in talks to send Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador prisons

[LeonardoBjj]

BY YOLANDA MAGAÑA
Updated 5:13 PM BRT, January 31, 2025

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday it was in talks with El Salvador to revive an agreement that could allow the United States to send non-Salvadoran migrants to the Central American country.

This time, though, the government would also aim to send members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to Salvadoran prisons, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the State Department’s special envoy for Latin America, in a call with media outlets.

It comes after a harsh crackdown on the country’s gangs by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. Bukele suspended key constitutional rights in 2022 and arrested 84,000 people, more than 1% of the country’s population. The majority of them remain in prison without being sentenced.

Bukele’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The crackdown has fueled human rights criticisms but has resulted in a sharp drop in violence in El Salvador, once plagued by the warring Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs.

Despite concerns over democracy, Bukele has drawn the admiration of many American right-wing figures. Simultaneously, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has also become a buzzword for Trump in speeches and politicians on the right.

“If we commit to reviving this agreement and include ... members of the Tren de Aragua gang, I bet they’re going to want to go back to Venezuela instead of dealing with the Mara prisons in El Salvador,” Claver-Carone said.

Claver-Carone spoke about the talks ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‘s trip to Latin America. Rubio is set to visit El Salvador on Monday between visits to Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

Top on the agenda is migration, and Rubio is likely to push allies like Bukele to help the Trump administration in its migratory crackdown and to accept migrants from countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba that largely don’t accept deportation flights from the U.S.

Claver-Carone provided few additional details about what “reviving” the agreement would entail. Trump in 2019 carried out a program known as “Safe Third Countries.”

During his first term, Trump reached agreements that would require people to apply for protective status in countries deemed “safe” that they passed through before reaching the U.S. border.

But it was sharply criticized as a way to cut off access for people to apply for asylum in the U.S. There were also doubts about the safety of vulnerable people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries terrorized by gangs that often prey on vulnerable migrants.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-el...gs-venezuela-ee1de096f2f7afdfb3fadadf84c47143

 

[Mr Holmes]

Good. This should help convince them to go back on their own.

 

[Richmma80]

Should send them to North Korea

 

[Misfit23]

Sounds more expensive then just deporting then to their home countries?

 

[Kingz]

I think this was in case Maduro wouldn’t take them back but developments this morning suggests he will.

 

[Hog-train]

Sounds more expensive then just deporting then to their home countries?

Problem is a lot of countries are resisting accepting them so you need a place to put deportees in the meantime (while we try to convince or negotiate them accepting them.)

 

[evergreenrider]

How on earth is that even remotely legal? Is this forced incarceration of numbers to such a degree gotdamn Guantonamo is in play, a ploy to justify going hog wild on privatized prisons?

 

[haysus31]

Violent gang members? Who cares. I always argue we should have a contract with China one way lifer goodbye. Outsource our worst to Chinese prisons. Much cheaper than the bloated prison budgets. They are doing life so go do it china Bangladesh or where ever.

 

[Osculater]

Damn

 

[DanSavage]

More winning. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks. FAFO.

 

[Hdfi]

Violent gang members? Who cares. I always argue we should have a contract with China one way lifer goodbye. Outsource our worst to Chinese prisons. Much cheaper than the bloated prison budgets. They are doing life so go do it china Bangladesh or where ever.

China is too smart to accept this shit.

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Rubio says El Salvador offers to accept deportees from US of any nationality, including Americans​

BY MATTHEW LEE AND JUAN ZAMORANO
Updated 2:56 AM BRT, February 4, 2025

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.

President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said after meeting with Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador for several hours.

“We can send them and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said of migrants of all nationalities detained in the United States. “And, he’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents.”

Rubio was visiting El Salvador to press a friendly government to do more to meet President Donald Trump’s demands for a major crackdown on immigration.

Bukele confirmed the 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.” He 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.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire working with Trump to remake the federal government, responded on his X platform, “Great idea!!”

After Rubio spoke, a U.S. official said the Trump administration had no current plans to try to deport American citizens, but said Bukele’s offer was significant. The U.S. government cannot deport American citizens and such a move would be met with significant legal challenges.

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

Rubio arrived in San Salvador shortly after watching a U.S.-funded deportation flight with 43 migrants leave from Panama for Colombia. That came a day after Rubio delivered a warning to Panama that unless the government moved immediately to eliminate China’s presence at the Panama Canal, the U.S. would act to do so.

Migration, though, was the main issue of the day, as it will be for the next stops on Rubio’s five-nation Central American tour of Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic after Panama and El Salvador. His tour is taking place at a time of turmoil in Washington over the status of the government’s main foreign development agency.

Trump’s administration prioritizes stopping people from making the journey to the United States and has worked with regional countries to boost immigration enforcement on their borders as well as to accept deportees from the United States.

The agreement Rubio described for El Salvador to accept foreign nationals arrested in the United States for violating U.S. immigration laws is known as a “safe third country” agreement. Officials have suggested this might be an option for Venezuelan gang members convicted of crimes in the United States should Venezuela refuse to accept them, but Rubio said Bukele’s offer was for detainees of any nationality.

Rubio arrived in San Salvador shortly after watching a U.S.-funded deportation flight with 43 migrants leave from Panama for Colombia. That came a day after Rubio delivered a warning to Panama that unless the government moved immediately to eliminate China’s presence at the Panama Canal, the U.S. would act to do so.

Migration, though, was the main issue of the day, as it will be for the next stops on Rubio’s five-nation Central American tour of Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic after Panama and El Salvador. His tour is taking place at a time of turmoil in Washington over the status of the government’s main foreign development agency.

Trump’s administration prioritizes stopping people from making the journey to the United States and has worked with regional countries to boost immigration enforcement on their borders as well as to accept deportees from the United States.

The agreement Rubio described for El Salvador to accept foreign nationals arrested in the United States for violating U.S. immigration laws is known as a “safe third country” agreement. Officials have suggested this might be an option for Venezuelan gang members convicted of crimes in the United States should Venezuela refuse to accept them, but Rubio said Bukele’s offer was for detainees of any nationality.

Rubio said Bukele then went further and said his country was willing to accept and to jail U.S. citizens or legal residents convicted of and imprisoned for violent crimes.

Human rights activists have warned that El Salvador lacks a consistent policy for the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees and that such an agreement might not be limited to violent criminals.

Manuel Flores, the secretary general of the leftist opposition party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, criticized the “safe third country” plan, saying it would signal that the region is Washington’s “backyard to dump the garbage.”

After meeting with Bukele, Rubio signed a memorandum of understanding with his Salvadoran counterpart to advance U.S.-El Salvador civil nuclear cooperation. The document could lead to a more formal deal on cooperation in nuclear power and medicine that the U.S. has with numerous countries.

The deportation flight Rubio watched being loaded in Panama City was carrying migrants detained by Panamanian authorities after illegally crossing the Darien Gap from Colombia. The State Department says such deportations send a message of deterrence. The U.S. has provided Panama with financial assistance to the tune of almost $2.7 million in flights and tickets since an agreement was signed to fund them.

Rubio was on the tarmac for the departure of the flight, which was taking 32 men and 11 women back to Colombia. It’s unusual for a secretary of state to personally witness such a law enforcement operation, especially in front of cameras.

“Mass migration is one of the great tragedies in the modern era,” Rubio said, speaking afterward in a nearby building. “It impacts countries throughout the world. We recognize that many of the people who seek mass migration are often victims and victimized along the way, and it’s not good for anyone.”

Monday’s deportation flight came as Trump has been threatening action against nations that will not accept flights of their nationals from the United States, and he briefly hit Colombia with penalties last week for initially refusing to accept two flights. Panama has been more cooperative and has allowed flights of third-country deportees to land and sent migrants back before they reach the United States.

His trip comes amid a sweeping freeze in U.S. foreign assistance and stop-work orders that have shut down U.S.-funded programs targeting illegal migration and crime in Central American countries. The State Department said Sunday that Rubio had approved waivers for certain critical programs in countries he is visiting, but details of those were not immediately available.

While Rubio was out of the country, staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed Monday to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters after Musk announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs shut down. 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.

The change means that USAID is no longer an independent government agency as it had been for decades — although its new status will likely be challenged in court — and will be run out of the State Department by department officials.

In his remarks, Rubio stressed that some and perhaps many USAID programs would continue in the new configuration but that the switch was necessary because the agency had become unaccountable to the executive branch and Congress.

On his weekend discussion with Panama’s president on the Panama Canal, Rubio said he was hopeful that the Panamanians would heed his and Trump’s warnings on China. Panamanians have bristled at Trump’s insistence on retaking control of the American-built canal, which the U.S. turned over in 1999, although they have agreed to pull out of a Chinese infrastructure and development initiative.

“I understand that it’s a delicate issue in Panama,” Rubio told reporters in San Salvador. “We don’t want to have a hostile and negative relationship with Panama,” he said. “I don’t believe we do. And we had a frank and respectful conversation, and I hope it’ll yield fruits and result in the days to come.”

But back in Washington, Trump was less diplomatic, saying: “China’s involved with the Panama Canal. They won’t be for long and that’s the way it has to be.”


“We either want it back, or we’re going to get something very strong, or we’re going to take it back,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “And China will be dealt with.”

https://apnews.com/article/migratio...ia-venezuela-237f06b7d4bdd9ff1396baf9c45a2c0b

 

[Flower2dPeople]

China is too smart to accept this shit.

Organ harvesting? Maybe give US 20% of the profit?

 

[GrantB13]

Violent gang members? Who cares. I always argue we should have a contract with China one way lifer goodbye. Outsource our worst to Chinese prisons. Much cheaper than the bloated prison budgets. They are doing life so go do it china Bangladesh or where ever.

Lol who the fuck would willingly take the worst offenders from a foreign country? Maybe you haven't thought that part out because that's crazy.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Didn't Salvador round up all the gang members and reduce their annual murder rate by some staggering percentage?

 

[White Whale]

El Salvador will put them straight into prison their president doesn't F around when dealing with criminals. Venezuelans might avoid traveling to the United States because they don't want to end up in a prison in El Salvador.

 

[HereticBD]

Didn't Salvador round up all the gang members and reduce their annual murder rate by some staggering percentage?

Yeah, they went hardcore. They liked bustin' heads so much, that they apparently want to round up criminals from other countries and toss them into a hole. Can't say I've ever seen that before. The beast needs feeding.

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Lol who the fuck would willingly take the worst offenders from a foreign country? Maybe you haven't thought that part out because that's crazy.

- Those places are like hell. Being a violent criminal in americais diferent than in those places. They would be separated from their gangs, with guys willing to do the most abominable things to another human being.

 

[Hdfi]

El Salvador would have to be very retarded to accept a bunch of violent foreign criminals.

 

[haysus31]

El Savador is courageous they have showed the way. Remove the worst of the worst and prosper.