El Salvador offers to lock up US criminals in its mega-jail

El Salvador has offered to instrumentality successful criminals deported from the US, including those with US citizenship, and location them successful its mega-jail.

The woody was announced aft US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele during his sojourn to the cardinal American nation.

Bukele - whose iron-fist attack to gangs has won him plaudits from voters but been heavy criticised by quality rights groups - said helium had offered the US "the accidental to outsource portion of its situation system".

Rubio said the US was "profoundly grateful" to Bukele, adding that "no country's ever made an connection of relationship specified arsenic this".

Rubio told reporters: "He has offered to location successful his jails unsafe American criminals successful custody successful our country, including those with US citizenship and ineligible residency."

Referring to 2 of the region's astir notorious transnational transgression gangs, Rubio added that El Salvador would besides instrumentality successful deported migrants and "criminals from immoderate nationality, beryllium the MS-13 oregon Tren de Aragua".

Bukele aboriginal confirmed the connection connected X, specifying that "we are consenting to instrumentality successful lone convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) successful speech for a fee".

He added that "the interest would beryllium comparatively debased for the US but important for us, making our full situation sustainable".

Since helium came into bureau successful 2019, Bukele has made cracking down connected transgression his government's priority.

The recently built maximum-security jailhouse helium referred to, Cecot [Terrorism Confinement Centre], is astatine the centre of his thrust to fastener up and punish the astir convulsive pack members.

The authorities celebrated the opening of the jailhouse - which it says tin clasp up to 40,000 inmates - by releasing photos and videos of shaven-headed and tattooed prisoners stripped down to the waist being frogmarched on its corridors.

The attraction of inmates astatine Cecot, wherever up to 80 prisoners are locked up successful each windowless cells, has been criticised by rights groups.

But Bukele's crackdown connected transgression continues to beryllium precise fashionable with the immense bulk of Salvadoreans who accidental they tin spell astir their lives without threats from pack members for the archetypal clip successful years.

However, immoderate relatives of the tens of thousands of radical which person been rounded up and jailed nether exigency measures brought successful by Bukele accidental their loved ones person been wrongfully rounded up successful sweeping constabulary round-ups.

Amnesty International has criticised the "gradual replacement of pack unit with authorities violence" successful the state - a disapproval dismissed by Bukele, who points retired that his hardline attack to transgression past February won him re-election to a 2nd word with much than 84% of the votes.

El Salvador was the 2nd halt connected Secretary of State Rubio's archetypal overseas circuit arsenic the US apical diplomat.

His archetypal halt was Panama, wherever helium demanded that Panama marque "immediate changes" to what helium called the "influence and control" of China implicit the Panama Canal.

On Tuesday, helium volition clasp meetings with officials successful Costa Rica and Guatemala expected to absorption connected migration arsenic good arsenic countering Chinese power successful the region.

Since coming to office, US President Donald Trump has focused connected speeding up the removal of undocumented migrants, with the committedness of "mass deportations".