Trump Floats Deporting American Inmates to Notorious El Salvador Prison: ‘I’d Love That!’
President Donald Trump has admitted he’d “suggested” a plan to deport American citizens within the federal prison system to El Salvador’s mega prison.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump was asked about a recent deal his administration made with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to send suspected Venezuelan gang members to the country’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
One reporter asked Trump about reported suggestions from Bukele that he’d be willing to take American citizens from the federal prison population into his custody.
Trump replied:
I love that. If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and then purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would 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 but I would only do according to the law.
Trump then admitted that he had “suggested” the idea to Bukele himself.
But I have suggested that, you know, why should it stop just the people that cross the border illegally? We have some horrible criminals, American grown and born. And if we have somebody that bops an old woman over the head, if we have somebody that is in jail 20 times and goes back and shoots people all over the place, and then has a bad judge or a bad prosecutor that do nothing about them, all they worry about is politics, And don’t worry about that, I think if we could get El Salvador or somebody to take them I’d be very happy with it. But I have to see what the law says.
Trump’s remarks come amid wider legal turmoil over his administration’s deportations to El Salvador’s CECOT — a mega-prison housing up to 40,000 inmates in extreme conditions that critics say violate human rights.
Last month, a federal judge blocked further deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, prompting a scramble from the White House after Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent to the facility, although White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the man was a MS-13 gang member and the deportation was justified.
Vice President JD Vance later echoed Leavitt’s remarks, adding that Garcia also “committed some traffic violations” and “wasn’t exactly ‘father of the year.'”
Watch above via MSNBC.
