Can US criminals be sent to El Salvador’s mega-prison?

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could not be more paid for the deal he was in Monday with President of El Salvador.

The best diplomat of the Trump administration seems to be delighted, but stunned by the fact that the president’s most bouquet had to “agree with the most precious, unusual, unusual migrating agreement all over the world.”

Bouke had offered to take people deported from the United States, regardless of their nationality, and to place them in the El Salvador prison.

“We can send them and he will put them in his prisons,” Rubio said.

Although this was already a victory for President Donald Trump, whose priority was to accelerate the removal of underdeveloped migrants from the United States, the real surprise came to the part of the deal Rubio mentioned further.

“He (Bouke) also suggested that he do the same for dangerous criminals who are currently in custody and serve their sentences in the United States, although they are US citizens or legal residents,” Rubio said.

Later, Salvadore’s leader confirmed that “he proposed to the United States to outsource part of his prison system.”

He explained that El Salvador would be “ready to take only convicted criminals” and that his government would do it “in return for a fee.”

The bouquet also revealed where the US deported from the United States will house: “Our mega prisoner.”

The Mega Prison, also known as Cecot (short for the Terrorism Center), has become emblematic of a bouquet’s iron approach to crime and punishment.

The prison with maximum security, one of the largest in Latin America, opened in January 2023 and 40,000 prisoners can be collected, according to government data.

The prisoners are limited to windows without windows, sleeping on bare metal buns and are constantly observed by armed guards – some of whom watch them from the top of the grid ceiling.

BBC News Mundo’s Leire Ventas, who was allowed to make an official tour of the facility last year after the BBC repeatedly requested access, described how cell temperatures would reach 35 ° C.

Check out the mega-prison graphics and cards

With the access to the prison, which is severely restricted and journalists, authorized only with casual and carefully choreographed formal tours, the number of cell prisoners is not clear.

Some groups of rights place it on 80 prisoners, while others say it can reach more than 150.

Asked by our journalist what the maximum capacity is, the prison director replied “Where can you hold 10 people, you can put 20”.

The prisoners are closed inside their cells 24 hours a day – except for 30 minutes of group exercises in a corridor without windows.

The prison layout is not accidental.

After a particularly bloody weekend in 2022, when more than 70 people were killed in the small Central American nation, President Boukele wrote on social media: “Message for the gangs: Due to your actions, your” domestic “will not be able to see a sun beam.”

The construction of the Cecot mega-jasa began shortly after.

Prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners have fallen under serious criticism on the part of human rights.

Miguel Sare, a former member of the United Nations undercutting the organization to prevent torture, described it as “concrete and steel pit”.

So can the Trump administration send US citizens there?

The bouquet’s proposal was met with approval by Elon Musk, a close counselor of Trump, who retroaches the social post of the leader of the Salvadorean leader with the comment: “A great idea!”.

But any attempt to deport US citizens or people who are legally resident in a foreign prison is obliged to face legal challenges.

US citizens who are born in the United States are enjoying legal protection against deportation.

However, there are some cases where naturalized citizens – those who are not born in the United States and who have received US citizenship after birth through a legal process – can cancel them citizenship.

This is a tendency when the person in question uses fraud to get citizenship first.

Alex Quick, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Case Western Reserve in Ohio, told the BBC that naturalizes US citizens suspected of criminal gangs or terrorist organizations – such as MS Tren de Aragua Criminal Gang or Mara Salv MS -13 – In theory, it can also be deprived of US citizenship.

“If they find out that you are a member of any group that pursues or threatens to pursue others, they can try to denatralize you,” added Cuic.

“So, if you have had the band’s relationships and never reveal them, they could use this as a reason to disprove you.”

Once a person is “denaturalized”, he or she is at risk of deportation.

Cuic pointed out that every such move should be preceded by an “official trial” conducted in a federal court.

However, the lawyer warned that “citizenship is not something that is finally forever if you are naturalized.”

He stressed, however, that he has never heard of cases of US citizens born in the United States to be sent abroad for imprisonment for crimes committed and persecuted in the United States.

Shev Dalal-Dhayni, director of the government’s government relations of the US Immigration Bar Association, also said that she has never heard of such a proposal “as sending US citizens to serve prison abroad.

While she admitted that there are various scenarios where naturalized US citizens can lose their citizenship, she said that “you cannot denout a natural native citizen.”

However, the status of legal permanent residents in the United States is more non -secure than that of US citizens.

They may be deported if they violate certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which include committing drug crimes, offenses with violence or crimes such as theft, fraud or attack.

Like naturalized citizens, they can also be deported if they have received their residence through fraud.

Permanent legal residents involved in terrorism, espionage or any activity threatening the US national interest may also be at risk of deportation.

This last point is important in the light of The President of the Executive Order Trump issued himself on the day of his assumption in a position in which he described drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations”S

Two criminal organizations referred to in the executive order, Tren de Aragua and MS-13, were also mentioned last week by the Special Messenger of Trump for Latin America, Mauricio Kankon-Karone.

Speaking at a briefing for Marco Rubio’s trip to El Salvador, Kankon -Karone not only praised the MS -13 bouquet – a band that is rooted deep in Salvador and has long terrorized its citizens – but also said that a bouquet could Sugge the answer how to deal with the Venezuelan band Tren de Aragua.

Klaver-Karone also seems to be claiming that the perspective itself to be sent to Salvadorea prison can drive members of the Venezuela band back to its homeland.

“I bet they will want to return to Venezuela instead of dealing with Mara’s prisons in El Salvador,” he told the band members Tren de Aragua.

Marco Rubio also appears to have stressed that the Trump administration will first and foremost want to send members of these two notorious bands to Salvador’s prisons.

“Every illegal immigrant and illegal immigrant in the United States, which is a dangerous criminal-MS-13, Tren de Aragua, whatever is, he offered his prisons,” Rubio said after his conversations with a bouquet.

Although it is by no means clear who – if anyone – will be sent from the United States to the Merga -Professor of Salvador, it is certain that with his “unprecedented friendship proposal”, the bouquet landed firmly in favor of Trump at a time when Relations between the US and its neighbors have been shaken by the threats of the US President They impose tariffs on their goods.

With additional reporting from BBC’s BBC BEND DEBUSMANN JR in Washington, Colombia County.