In an unprecedented move that has alarmed human rights advocates, the Trump administration is pursuing multiple controversial detention strategies, including agreements to transfer U.S. prisoners to El Salvador and send undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay.
“If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office regarding the potential transfer of American inmates to El Salvador, acknowledging potential legal barriers to the proposed agreement.
The arrangements, announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio following meetings with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, would allow El Salvador to house inmates at its Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), which can hold up to 40,000 inmates. Bukele confirmed the agreement on social media, stating, “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”
Legal experts immediately challenged both proposals’ constitutionality. “The US is absolutely prohibited from deporting US citizens, whether they are incarcerated or not,” explained Leti Volpp, a UC Berkeley law professor specializing in immigration law.
The El Salvador agreement emerged amid Bukele’s controversial crackdown on gang violence, which has led to the imprisonment of more than 81,000 people since 2022. While crime rates have dropped dramatically, human rights organizations have condemned prison conditions as inhumane.
Simultaneously, the administration has begun transferring undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay, with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem defending the move on NBC’s Meet the Press: “We’ll have the capacity to continue to do there what we’ve always done. We’ve always had a presence of illegal immigrants there that have been detained.”
However, immigration experts note crucial differences in the current approach. “The US government intentionally uses Guantanamo in hopes of avoiding oversight and the public eye, which makes the facility ripe for abuse,” said Hannah Flamm, interim senior policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project.
The State Department’s assessments raise serious concerns about detention conditions in both locations. Their travel advisory for El Salvador warns of “harsh” prison conditions, noting that “overcrowding constitutes a serious threat to prisoners’ health and lives” with inadequate or nonexistent necessities.
The initiatives have drawn sharp criticism from advocacy groups. Roman Palomares, National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), condemned the approach, stating his organization “opposes treating deported non-criminal migrants like cattle who can be shuttled from one country to another without regard to their home of origin.”
Manuel Flores, general secretary of El Salvador’s leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front party, voiced regional concerns, asking, “What are we? Backyards, front yards, or garbage dumps?”
The proposals come amid broader changes in U.S. foreign policy. The administration has moved to reorganize the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with thousands of employees already laid off and programs worldwide shut down under Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign assistance.
In a striking discussion about international prisoner transfers, Senator Marco Rubio addressed a novel proposal while speaking in San Jose. While acknowledging constitutional constraints with the statement, “There are legalities involved. We have a Constitution,” he expressed notable enthusiasm for what he characterized as an unprecedented opportunity to manage violent offenders, noting that it would be “at a fraction of the cost.” The significance of his statement lies in his candid recognition of both legal boundaries and potential cost benefits in handling “the most dangerous and violent criminals” in the U.S. criminal justice system.
The American Civil Liberties Union has demanded access to migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay, seeking to ensure their right to legal counsel and assess detention conditions. The organization sent a formal letter to the administration on February 7 requesting immediate access.
The initiatives reflect the administration’s broader immigration crackdown, including recent agreements with Venezuela to accept deportees and potential revocation of temporary protected status for 348,000 Venezuelans currently residing in the United States.
As these policies unfold, questions persist about their legality, humanitarian implications, and impact on regional stability. International politics scholar Mneesha Gellman from Emerson College characterized the El Salvador agreement as “a bizarre and unprecedented proposal being made potentially between two authoritarian, populist, right wing leaders seeking a transactional relationship,” adding that it likely violates numerous international laws regarding migrant rights.