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Trump: “We could also deport US criminals to prisons in El Salvador”

After Bukele deal, president opens up to deporting US repeat offenders. Abrego Garcia case at centre of clash between White House and Supreme Court

US President Donald Trump said he is considering deporting not only illegal immigrants, but also US citizens responsible for violent crimes to El Salvador. ‘We’re considering it, we want to do it. I would love to,’ he said in an interview with Fox Noticias, reviving a hypothesis that risks opening a new legal and constitutional front.

The statement comes just a few days after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s visit to the White House, during which the agreement on the transfer of criminals deported from the United States to Salvadoran prisons, in particular to the infamous CECOT penitentiary, was reinforced.

Now Trump would also like to extend this model to “homegrown criminals”, a reference to US citizens who are serious and repeat offenders.

In the briefing with reporters, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt pointed out: ‘This is a legal issue that the president is considering. He would consider it if it were possible for American citizens responsible for repeated violent crimes. No one in this room would want these people in their community’.

Leavitt also attacked the federal judiciary: ‘Another district judge is trying to block deportations of illegal immigrants who entered our country for economic reasons. But this administration is acting to protect Americans.”

The tension between the White House and the Supreme Court is growing, not least because of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who entered the United States illegally in 2016.

In 2019, a ruling had granted him protected status, believing that his eventual deportation would expose him to gang retaliation. However, Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, where he is now being held in CECOT.

The Supreme Court has demanded the man’s release, but the administration has no intention of backing down. “Garcia is a foreign terrorist, a member of the MS-13 gang, involved in human trafficking. He has been sent back to his country and will face the consequences of his actions,” Leavitt said. ‘I don’t understand what’s so difficult about that.’

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