US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could not have been more complimentary about the deal he struck with the president of El Salvador on Monday.
The Trump administration’s top diplomat appeared delighted yet stunned by the fact that President Nayib Bukele should have “agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.
Bukele had offered to take in people deported from the US, regardless of their nationality, and house them in El Salvador’s mega-jail.
“We can send them and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said.
While that was already a win for President Donald Trump, whose priority has been to speed up the removal of undocumented migrants from the US, the real surprise came in the part of the deal Rubio mentioned next.
“He [Bukele] has also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they’re US citizens or legal residents,” Rubio said.
The Salvadorean leader confirmed that he had “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system”.
He clarified that El Salvador would be “willing to take in only convicted criminals” and that his government would do so “in exchange for a fee”.
Bukele also revealed where he would house those deported from the US: “our mega-prison”.
The mega-jail, also known as Cecot (short for Terrorism Confinement Centre), has become emblematic of Bukele’s iron-fist approach to crime and punishment.
The maximum-security prison, one of the largest in Latin America, opened in January 2023 and can house 40,000 inmates, according to government figures.
Inmates are confined to windowless cells, sleep on bare metal bunks and are constantly monitored by armed guards – some of whom watch over them from atop the lattice ceiling.
temperatures in the cells would reach 35C.
With access to the prison severely restricted and journalists only allowed on occasional and carefully choreographed official tours, the number of inmates per cell is not clear.
Some rights groups put it at 80 prisoners while others say it can go up to more than 150.
Asked by our journalist what the maximum capacity was, the prison’s director responded “where you can fit 10 people, you can fit 20”.