 "Prisoners look out from their cell at the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, April 4, 2025, during a tour by the Costa Rica Justice and Peace minister. File Image/AP")
United States President Donald Trump has publicly floated the idea of deporting US citizens — specifically those convicted of violent crimes — to prisons in El Salvador.
The controversial proposal surfaced during Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s recent visit to the White House and has raised serious constitutional questions about the scope of executive power, due process and the legal status of American citizenship.
Trump’s remarks mark the most definitive indication yet that his administration is actively exploring the legality of sending naturalised or even native-born American citizens to overseas detention facilities, including El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison known as CECOT (Terrorism Confinement Center).
What Trump said
While hosting Bukele at the White House, Trump suggested that the US might begin deporting American citizens involved in violent crimes to El Salvador.
“We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump told reporters.
“I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” he added.
When asked again during the Oval Office meeting whether the proposal extended to US citizens, Trump responded, “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. We’re studying the laws right now. Pam [Bondi, the attorney general] is studying. If we can do that, that’s good.”
The idea gained traction during the leaders’ discussion, where Trump further commented that if Bukele were to accommodate these American prisoners, “he’d have to build five more places” to hold them.
Can the US deport its own citizens?
The United States Constitution provides clear protections for its citizens, including the right not to be expelled from the country without due process. Legal scholars have swiftly pushed back against the legality of Trump’s idea.
“There is no provision under US law that would allow the government to kick citizens out of the country,” Erin Corcoran, a professor of immigration law at the University of Notre Dame, told Reuters.
Although the US government has the authority to deport immigrants, including those convicted of crimes, such powers do not extend to US citizens. “It is illegal to expatriate US citizens for a crime,” stated Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.
In rare circumstances, naturalised citizens can lose their citizenship if it is proven they lied during the naturalisation process or committed acts such as terrorism or treason. However, these are exceptional cases that require a formal legal process and do not apply to native-born citizens.
The Supreme Court has also weighed in on aspects of this issue.
In a case concerning the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stark warning: “The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress.”
CECOT: El Salvador’s mega-prison
El Salvador’s CECOT facility has become central to the Trump administration’s efforts to offload detainees.
The US has sent hundreds of immigrants accused of gang affiliations to this prison, relying on legal frameworks that remain heavily contested. Trump has praised El Salvador’s cooperation, stating, “You are helping us out, and we appreciate it.”
The Biden and Trump administrations have both used third-country agreements to transfer migrants to countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama — even when those migrants are not citizens of those countries.
Under Trump, the US has paid El Salvador approximately $6 million to house deportees. However, international law prohibits sending individuals to nations where they face a credible risk of torture or persecution.
Despite these legal complexities, Bukele has leaned into the arrangement. “To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some,” he said during the Oval Office meeting. “You have to imprison them so you can liberate 350 million Americans that are asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorism.”
Bukele has also described the program as an opportunity to “outsource part of [America’s] prison system” and indicated that El Salvador is open to housing even convicted US citizens — if properly compensated.
The case of Kilmar Abrego García
The deportation of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant who has not been charged with any crime and is married to a US citizen, has become a high-profile flashpoint in this evolving legal saga.
Despite a federal immigration judge granting Abrego García a withholding of removal order in 2019 due to credible threats of persecution in El Salvador, he was nevertheless deported to CECOT.
Bukele dismissed any notion of returning Abrego García to the US. “How can I return him to the United States?” he said. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”
US District Judge Paula Xinis has said there is no evidence Abrego García is affiliated with MS-13, the gang the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organisation.
“The United States should call out Bukele’s contemptuous and anti-democratic behavior rather than celebrate and be complicit in it,” said Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), who criticised the White House for “cozying up to an aspiring dictator.”
The US Supreme Court recently ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego García’s return , while stopping short of mandating the government to “effectuate” it. Trump officials, however, have argued they are not bound by the ruling.
“No court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The administration has since admitted that Abrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error,” but has not moved to reverse it.
No legal path to deport citizens
While Trump has stated that the administration is still reviewing the legalities, current US law leaves no room for the deportation of citizens to foreign prisons.
The only existing framework for the transfer of citizens abroad is through extradition treaties, which apply only when individuals are accused of crimes committed in those foreign jurisdictions.
Moreover, the First Step Act — legislation signed by Trump himself in 2018 — requires the government to house inmates in facilities located within 500 miles of their home to allow for family visits.
Sending inmates to Central America would directly violate that statute, in addition to likely breaching protections under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Even transferring federal inmates who are already incarcerated would face legal hurdles. According to Eisen, “even if the administration tries to transfer federal prisoners there, arguing they’re already incarcerated, it could run afoul of the First Step Act.”
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With inputs from agencies